Regal/Odeon Cinema, April 2017

urbexdevil · Apr 17, 2017

Three locations in one day and still time to head home for an Easter dinner. Onto the old Regal/Odeon cinema to see what myself and onethirtytwo_ could find.

After the most hilarious public entry I have done in a while, we made our way inside the cinema with an interesting find of builders lights still turned on.

Majority of the cinema has well and truely been stripped leaving little to see other than a rather grand looking theater setup. Unfortunately all I can say for the rest is sketchy, rotten wooden pigeon shit infested derp. However saying that, the site can be compared to a tardis, the inside is huge!

Big thanks to onethirtytwo_ for opening the door to the room I had inadvertently shut myself in without checking there was a door handle to let myself out again haha!

Snapping away what we could and attempting not to fall through any spongy feeling floors, we made our way out the building and bumped into some local kids who appeared to have “expert knowledge”. Not often your laughing your way in and laughing your way out. Derp? Yes, but still worth a mooch.

The old Odeon cinema was formerly the Regal cinema. It was designed by Cecil Masey, a well-known cinema architect, and built in 1931. It has a Spanish-style gabled front and originally had an ‘atmospheric’ interior and included a cafÃ©, Wurlitzer organ, and full stage facilities, with flanking shops on the ground-floor frontage.

It opened in February 1931, with seating for 1446 people. Taken over by the County Cinemas chain in March 1935, they were taken over by the Oscar Deutsch chain of Odeon Theatres Ltd. in 1938. The Regal cinema was closed in 1944, when it was damaged by a fire, and it remained closed for three months while repairs were carried out. It was renamed ‘Odeon’ in September 1961. The building was extensively remodelled in 1964; 10 years later the interior was completely reconstructed to provide three screens, and it became the Odeon film centre; a fourth screen was added in 1987 and two more in 1991 when alterations to the building gave a 30 per cent increase in seating capacity.

The old dressing rooms were used as a base for Hospital Radio Colchester from 1975 to 1990. In 1992 the Odeon was the only cinema in Colchester. Live performances were presented at the Regal/Odeon as well as films – for example, on the 8th September 1964, the Rolling Stones played two concerts here! The interior was subdivided in 1974 and the cinema closed in 2002. Now empty, the building was put up for sale in March 2012 with a price tag of £1.5 million. The cinema played a significant role in people’s lives before television. It is possible that more people went into the old Odeon than any other building in the town.