Talk - Plymouth's Last Super-Cinema: Saving The Royal

Karl Parsons, chair of the Royal Cinema Community Benefit Society, is talking about The Royal at the Plymouth Proprietary Library on Wednesday 23 September. It's a mid-afternoon session, running from 14:00 to 15:00, and it's as much about the building's history as it is about what's happening to it now.

Parsons starts with the building as a twentieth-century cinema type, tracing its life as a picture palace in Plymouth. He looks at the legacy of the ABC chain and the wider cultural landscape of mid-twentieth-century Plymouth, so you get a sense of where The Royal sat within the city's social life back when the cinema was the main event on a night out. It's a look at the faded, time-worn glamour of the place, and the kind of cinema that used to define the high street.

From there, the talk turns to the present. Parsons introduces the 'Save The Royal' campaign, a community-led initiative working to secure a sustainable, long-term future for the site. It's the part of the hour that moves from the archives to the actual work being done to keep the building from slipping away.

The talk is at the Plymouth Proprietary Library on Saint Barnabas Terrace, PL1 5NN. It runs from 14:00 to 15:00 on Wednesday 23 September, and tickets are £5 for members and £8 for non-members.