Regent Theatre Brisbane to be bulldozed

If you live in South East Queensland, you have just one week to have a final visit to the Regent Theatre on the Queen Street Mall.

In a fashion reminiscent of the Joh years, this wonderful venue is to be demolished next Monday. Only the heritage-listed foyer and marble staircase will be retained.

In fact, this unfortunate outcome probably goes back to the years of Joh Bjeke-Petersen's Premiership of Queensland, when so many Brisbane icons came tumbling down: the hilltop dancehall Cloudland probably the most regrettable. It was in 1978 that Birch Carol Coyle were going to demolish the entire theatre, by reached a compromise whereby the foyer would be preserved, and one of the four theatres would 'showcase' a recreation of some of the decor of the original 1929 2000-seat auditorium.

From that time onwards, the fate of the Regent was probably doomed. The wannabe 'ultra modern' chrome, white walls and red carpet and velvet of the new areas clashed tragically with the Gothic/Romanesque features of the retained areas, and the modern armchairs were utterly out of place amid the reproduction plasterwork of the 'showcase theatre'. Unsurprisingly, nothing of the new construction was ever listed for protection. Worse still was probably the worst McDonalds franchise in Australia located in the basement.

In the final week, it is good to see that they will reprise the midnight screenings of the Rocky Horror Picture Show - once a staple midnight Friday show, and I recall the longest unbroken scheduling of the movie in the world.

In the days before the Sunshine Coast got the single Maroochydore cinema, and Caloundra's Strand and the delightful old Coolum Cinema (complete with canvas deck chairs) were the only local movie options for a Sunshine Coast lad, a trip to Brisbane almost always featured a movie at the Regent. It will be a shame to see it gone.