Derelict cinema given the Disney stately touch as venue reopens for the last time
● State Cinema to screen classic film before demolition
A dusty, derelict Edinburgh cinema that was once a palace of the silver screen is to revisit its glorious past before being lost forever.
The long-shuttered State Cinema in Leith, which originally opened in 1938, showed everything from newsreels to The Lone Ranger serial to Hollywood classics over the years before closing in 1972.
But with planning permission granted to demolish the cinema and build flats on the site, organisers of Edinburgh’s Hidden Door Festival saw an opportunity to reopen the State one final time.
Festival organisers had already made headlines last year by injecting new life into nearby Leith Theatre.
This week the State Cinema will host a number of festival events, including a screening on Saturday of Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs. The Disney classic was released the year the cinema opened.
David Martin, the festival’s founder and creative director, said: “After the buzz and excitement surrounding our use of Leith Theatre last year, we decided we would keep at it and try to provide something unexpected again.
“We thought it would likely be in the centre of Edinburgh and we had a shortlist of 30 unused buildings, but then the State Cinema came up.
“We had previously tried to find out who owned it without luck, but when we saw an interview online with the new owner, we got in touch and told him what we would like to do. He said it sounded like a great idea to use it one last time.”
Once permission was granted from the city council and a full safety check was carried out, Mr Martin and his army of volunteers got to work.
“It’s much more stripped down and derelict than the theatre was, but that makes it more exciting and edgy,” Mr Martin, who teaches at Leith School of Art, said.
“The interior has changed a lot over the years. Once the cinema closed in 1972 it became a bingo hall and then a nightclub, at which point everything was changed internally, with bars, walkways and platforms added.
“It’s certainly rough and ready, but also evocative. It’s more of a shell now.
“We started building a floor – because it no longer had a floor – about three weeks ago. Before that people went in and cleared it, as it was full of rubble and dust. The festival is volunteer-run and we currently have a team of 400 from all walks of life helping out.”
Edinburgh now has about ten cinemas, but many more like the State have flickered out of existence.
More than 120 cinemas are listed in George Baird’s Edinburgh Theatres, Cinemas and Circuses guide. Many of the venues opened in 1913 – the boom year for cinema.
Among them is Edinburgh’s first purpose-built cinema the Haymarket, which closed in 1964, and the 1913-built Tivoli on Gorgie Road, known for its screenings of the Carry On films.
Fundraising contributed almost £10,000 towards stateof-the-art lighting and rigging to reopen the State Cinema. By the weekend the curtain will open one last time for a multi-sensory screening of Snow White.
Mr Martin said: “It will be an extended variation, with audience participation, and things like toffee apples instead of poisoned apples. We hope people will come down and be quite nostalgic.”