The last film I saw at Redruth’s Regal cinema was Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, which dates the trip at circa 1988 – a time when I almost certainly would have been wearing high-waisted stonewashed jeans with zips at the ankles. So you could say my visit last night (to see The Hurt Locker) was long overdue.
Two decades on, the Regal is a surprisingly fancy affair, tricked out with neon deco signage, a bar and – the unique selling point – a licensed screen with saloon-style black leather seats, two-person love seats and acres of leg room.
That perennially short-changed Redruth should be the chosen cinema for this sort of flagship treatment isn’t perhaps as surprising as it first seems. Architecturally, this is easily the county’s most interesting cinema, an art deco affair dating back to 1935, with a gorgeous fin tower on the left, deco signage and a circular lobby.
Cornish cinema trivia:
*Penzance’s Savoy cinema is considered to be the oldest continually running cinema in the country – and I have to say it does look and feel like it (I hasten to add how happy I am that it is still running, and hosting the Penwith Film Society every week)
*White River City multiplex in St Austell is Cornwall’s newest cinema – by 70 years!
*Padstow’s one-room Cinedrome (only open in school holidays & summer) – contender for smallest cinema in the country?
ismay atkins
pasties & cream cornwall blog 
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