ABC Regal Cinema, Chester.~ ‘the organist entertains’

 

 

Can it be imagined todays cinema audience could be encouraged to an interval of community singing led by words on the screen with a bouncing spot on the words in case they lost their place? Yet this was the case in cinemas that were fortunate to be equipped with a cinema organ. Initially the organ was intended to replace the orchestras that accompanied the silent films. Sound on film hurried in and a lot of red faced cinema owners were left with a very expensive investment on their hands. The solution was simple, turning the organ playing into an event in the middle of the film programme. So successful was this idea that the cinema organ installations continued on numerous new builds during the 1930s. To witness two thousand patrons singing at the top of their voices was something very special. The projectionists made certain that full presentation of colour changes took place during the sing song. Some cinema managers insisted that the organist remained until the end of the show to play the National Anthem.

Wilfrid Southworth, the organist who played the Compton Wonder Organ at the Grand Opening of the ABC Regal on Saturday 30th October 1937.

Within 10 months of this date Wilfrid tragically drowned while on holiday in Challaborough Bay near to Plymouth, at the young age of 38.

 

Touring organists, included Horace Piling. The organ interludes continued until the late 1950s.

The organist most associated with this instrument was Resident Organist -Joseph Storer, who made recording and broadcast from the ABC Regal.

Its sound in its original location can be heard on part of an LP recording issued in the late 1970s of archive tapes made by organist Frank Gordon. Chester’s ABC Regal Compton organ was very typical of its make and vintage, being designed to be played for short solo interludes of perhaps twenty minutes. Powerful Tuba rank was essential to accompany the two thousand voices in the community sing a-long.

The Compton organ remained in use until the mid 1960s, being played occasionally on a Saturday morning. During this time ABC’s Musical Director, Joseph Seal, had published a for sale list of cinema organs that were no longer required by the company. Chester’s organ was open for offers over £550.00 and was snapped up by the well known organist Ron Curtis of Bolton.

It was agreed that, as an experienced organ builder, he would dismantle and remove the complete assembly at a mutual convenient date . However, during one of the stage shows, a member of a pop group stepped onto the glass surround of the organ console which was covered with a black cloth. He badly gashed his leg.  It was arranged with Ron Curtis that the console was to be removed off it’s lift within days of the incident. The chambers were cleared of pipework soon after. These rooms were then converted into extra dressing rooms.

In 1971 it was sold to Blair Linnett, and shipped to Australia, without the “rainbow” illuminated console surround or the Melotone unit.

Blair extended his garage to form a studio auditorium of some 20,000 cubic feet, with a maximum ceiling height of eighteen feet. He installed the organ at one end of the studio, with the two chambers side by side and the console, with new wooden sides and a bench which he constructed, on a rostrum to the left. It took him some ten years to reconstruct the organ.

The Regal’s was one of several very similar organs built for Associated British Cinemas (ABC), which controlled a large circuit of cinemas throughout Britain. It comprised six ranks of pipes, with a three-manual console fitted with curved opalescent glass side and top panels which were illuminated from within by multi-coloured lights, perhaps the nadir of decadent vulgarity. The organ’s six pipe ranks were supplemented by an electrophonic attachment known as a “Melotone” unit, which emitted through a large horn-type loudspeaker sounds generated by rotating discs through an electro-static process.

The organ illustrates the development of the theatre organ into a punchy, dance-band-style instrument, with a high degree of unification, and yet different “chorus” build-ups on each manual.

 

This is entirely consistent with Compton’s aim, even on the smallest organs, of providing some degree of tonal variety between the manual choruses. Although the organ has only six ranks, two of these are extended to full 16-ft. compass, providing a very solid bass. The 32-ft. Acoustic Bass is another Compton speciality. This is not, like so many of its ilk, a mere 16 + 10 2/3-ft. combination from the Tibia, but in its bottom octave it plays a chord of four harmonics, and, when used with full pedal, provides with uncanny realism the effect of a 32-ft. reed. From Tenor C upwards, the Acoustic Bass sounds the 16-ft. Tuba an octave lower.

chestercinemas.co.uk

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Opened at the Majestic Theatre, Pomona, Queensland Australia on 6th July 2019, to continue its proud history for many more years to come.

 

HISTORIC CHESTER CINEMA ORGAN HAS NEW LEASE OF LIFE “DOWNUNDER”

An historic Cinema organ which once entertained thousands of people in one of Chester’s much loved but long gone picture palaces has been given a new lease of life thousands of miles away in a theatre in Australia.

The organ, formerly installed in the ABC Regal cinema on Foregate Street in Chester was removed from the venue in the mid 1960s before being shipped to the other side of the world in 1971.

Whilst the organ of the Gaumont Palace Cinema (now Mecca Bingo) was destroyed when the building ceased to be a cinema, happily, the same fate did not befall the Compton organ of the ABC Regal (now part of Primark/Cafe Nero). The organ, installed in the Foregate Street cinema in 1937 was carefully removed by Organist and engineer Ron Curtis and his team from Bolton and in 1971 was sold to organ enthusiast Blair Linnett and shipped to his home in Brisbane, Australia. Mr Linnett extended his garage to form a purpose built studio auditorium and carefully reconstructed the organ over the next ten years. When Mr Linnett sadly passed away, the future of the instrument was uncertain until that is, his family gifted the organ to the Majestic Theatre in Pomona, Queensland where with the support of the theatre’s former owner and resident Organist Ron West, Organ builders Don Clark and John Brooks set about restoring the organ and installing it in its new home.

Now, after a six and a half year period the organ is in full working order again and an event to celebrate the completion of its restoration took place at the Majestic Theatre recently with a party which included renowned Australian Theatre Organist David Bailey playing the organ to accompany a silent film. The Majestic Theatre which will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2021 is the oldest theatre in the World to still show silent movies continuously with regular screening attracting capacity audiences.