On Monday 7th September, Martin Humphries had the pleasure of a guided tour of the newly restored Regent Street Cinema by Fezzan Ahmed the Development Officer. As you can see from the photo the auditorium looks splendid, many of the seats have plaques from people in the film industry as part of their successful ‘name a seat’ campaign. There are about 30 left. The entrance looks very smart and there is a luxurious bar with panels highlighting the history of the building which includes the Lumiere brothers first film presentation in the UK in 1896. The programming is double bills of a wide ranging selection of films from Classics to Art House and well worth taking a look at. The University of Westminster has published a lavishly illustrated history of the cinema called The Magic Screen which contains a series of maps showing cinemas in the West End prior to World War One, World War Two, the 1970’s and the present day which are fascinating.

Fezzan Ahmed can be contacted on 020 3506 6291 and via email at f.ahmed@westminster.ac.uk