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From stage to screen, Royal Theatre stands tall

Even when multiplexes and malls have sprung up in the city, Royal Theatre, one of the oldest theatres in the city continues with its shows despite fetching a not-so-satisfactory revenue. And, they make it a point to screen MGR movies to woo cinegoers, mostly his fans, who crave for his movies.

The theatre, which is a landmark in the city, made a mark by screening many blockbuster movies starting from T. R. Rajkumari-M K Radha-Ranjan starrer ‘Chandralekha’ to MGR’s ‘Enga Veettu Pillai’ besides Sivaji’s ‘Sivantha Mann’ that ran for more than 100 days.

Royal Theatre was established by Gurusamy Nadar way back in 1946 for staging plays by noted drama troupe TKS Brothers, which drew huge crowds for several years before it was converted into a theatre. Initially, there were only evening shows.

Recalling the heydays of Royal Theatre, septuagenarian G.. Ratnavel, Gurusamy Nadar’s youngest son said that serpentine queues of cars could be seen parked from the front of the theatre to Francis Convent, more specifically for the blockbuster movie ‘Chandralekha’ which was released in 1948. Those were the golden days for cinema when cinegoers made a beeline to theatres since there was no other mode of entertainment except that.

He further recalled that the theatre was a venue for political meetings those days since it had a whopping 1,600 seating capacity. Majority of the politicians, including C. Rajagopalachariar, M. Karunanidhi, C. N. Annadurai and several others had addressed meetings at the theatre.

Mr. Ratnavel pointed out that they were the first to set a record of sorts in running K. Balachander’s ‘Marocharitra’, a Telugu film that ran for 420 days as a morning show. Director Balachander visited the theatre during a felicitation function held there for the movie. Royal Theatre had the distinction of running many MGR, Sivaji, Rajinikant movies for more than 100 days.

It is interesting to note that the tickets at Royal Theatre are still priced at Rs. 30, Rs. 20 and Rs. 7 only. And the present generation owners are not showing any interest to develop or modernise the theatre in tune with the changing trend. Seems like it would be curtains down for Royal Theatre in another few years. Definitely the old timers would miss the theatre, which stands tall as its name.