Paul Brennan speaks to 2CC
Transcription
Interviewer (LEON): Well it’s Thursday afternoon. It’s ten to five. It’s time to talk to Paul Brennan about new movies, except there are no new movies. So, instead, we’re going to talk about the Liberty Theatre in Yass, which has, apparently, sat dormant for quite some time but, at the moment, there are plans – there are moves afoot – to do something special with the theatre. Paul Brennan is, in fact, involved in his capacity as a heritage cinema consultant. So he’s going to tell us all about that today. Good afternoon Paul.
Paul Brennan: Leon what an introduction. And let me introduce the magnificence of the 1939 art deco ocean liner, believe it or not, there’s an art deco ocean liner cinema built in Yass and it’s one of the greatest pieces of architect. And I’m not exaggerating. We used to have a whole chain of what were ocean liner-style art deco movie theatres and they came from the design of nightclubs in the Fred Astair & Ginger Rogers movies. The whole purpose of these cinemas being built in country towns was to have people feel as though they were going on a journey on a wonderful vessel, and the further that they went into the building, the further they went from their normal life. And the destination of their terrific adventure, of course, was the movie screen where you went on a further adventure of the imagination. So these films, these cinemas were based on terrific films, but they were designed to make people incredibly happy and, I think, in 2020 and 2021 to have a restoration project of one of the only remaining art deco ocean liner movie theatres left in Australia should make people, both in Canberra and in Yass, pretty happy. And I think that’s my mission to do so.
Interviewer: Alright, so are there any others like this still around or are they all gone?
Paul Brennan: They’re all gone. The three that were off the same design in 1939 were The Victory in Sydney, which became The Rapallo, that was in the CBD on King George St. The other one was the West in Nowra, and that was lost in the ‘70s – it was demolished. Why would you demolish a cinema in Nowra? Seriously? You know, there’s lots of blocks of land everyone, so they demolish the ocean liner art deco theatre. And this happened everywhere! The Victory in George St was demolished in 1983 or 84.
We did have a series of cinemas across NSW that were designed by Crick and Furse – Bruce Crick and Graham Furse, or whatever his name was, I shouldn’t say that so disparagingly. They created a chain of cinemas called ‘Kings’ so if listeners google ‘Kings Theatres Sydney’ they’ll come up with a series of beautiful streamline movie theatres and none of them exist in Sydney as movie theatre. The only one that’s intact, that I know of, is the Civic Theatre in Scone which I renovated in 1988 as a gift to the people of Scone. That’s just had a heritage order put on it, and it’s also had heritage grants to help replace the roof and do certain work on it.
And with the support of the council in Yass, and with the support of the Friends of the Liberty Theatre in Yass, I hope to spend a fair bit of time in the next twelve months in Yass, in the theatre while we declutter the theatre, scrub it and paint it. Just so that we can see what we’ve got, and by Easter next year, once it goes through all the council requirements: the health and safety, the fire safety – they’re all things that people and tradesmen and professionals in Yass will bring to the building. Already I’ve had a phenomenal number of phone calls, emails supporting what we’re doing. And I’m feeding that with history lessons with why this type of cinema is a very unique style of cinema in NSW: they didn’t have them in Melbourne, they didn’t have them in Brisbane, they were a unique thing to Sydney via these two architects of the 1930s.
Interviewer: When you’ve worked your magic and spruced it all up again what’s the plan? Is it going to show movies again?
Paul Brennan: Yes. Movies would be part of its agenda. If you look at towns like Griffith, Leeton, Tumut, Toowoomba, even Mudgee, all of those towns have beautiful old movie theatres and every one of those towns have councils that were so enthusiastic to reinvigorate their unique cinema. They were different designs, none of them look like this, they look like other art deco or 1920s design. They realised that these theatres were also built for live performances, that they have terrific acoustics, that they’re hard as a rock because they are built like a fortress and they have plasterwork that you couldn’t break with a sledgehammer, courtesy of the drought of the last 25 years. The whole place has dried out, so it’s not like they have problems with the building, they are fortress-level buildings. And we find that the council gets behind the artist endeavours of the tradespeople and the friends of the art deco society, so in the next twelve months we’ll be, hopefully, drawing all those together. I’ll be there on an on-and-off basis throughout each month, half a month on and a week or two off. But I have to have an office in the building so that people can come in and see what they can expect. The bottom line is that this is a magnificent building. It’s just unbelievably filthy and it’s full of stored junk, and once everything is removed out of the building and you paint it, even if you paint it undercoat white, you suddenly think: ‘my god this place is beautiful’. And then there’s the great discovery: which is all the neon tubing which is in the building. You couldn’t pay to have this neon tubing working again, you couldn’t pay to make it today. So what we’re going to do is clean everything, paint everything, refresh everything, get it through council and have the whole town take some sort of emotional ownership by participating in its renovation. So its going to be a Mickey and Judy put on a show, like an MGM musical. The whole town can celebrate what will be a performing arts space, a music venue, a recital hall, orchestra, presentations – school presentations, and, of course, movies. Really you could just do business with Disney. It’s something that would make the town emotionally really jolt with happiness. It gives young people, especially under 30, something so proud of that they can contribute. And, of course, kids make movies today. I can’t wait for year twelve at Yass High to start making films and have a premiere showcase. It boosts the emotional content of the town and every second shop reopen and there’s a festival of the arts in Yass. So, if you want another reason to say: Yass, here it is.
Interviewer: Marvellous. Paul thank you. We’ll catch up with you again next week.
Paul Brennan: Thank you Leon.