The sad hulk of the Plaza in Port Talbot, an imposing listed, but derelict, cinema where local boys including Richard Burton, Sir Anthony Hopkins and Michael Sheen were regular filmgoers before going on to become Hollywood stars, could come back to life as a council-owned community hub – but not a cinema.
The Plaza was built in 1939. A local landmark, it was Grade II listed in 1999 for its striking art-deco design and largely unaltered interior. It originally had more than 1,000 seats. Like many other giant auditoriums of the golden age of cinema, it was converted into a bingo hall in the 1980s, before being revived for a few years as a cinema, with prices as low as 50p to try to build audiences.
However, the opening of a six-screen multiplex on the outskirts of the town spelled the end for the Plaza and it showed its final film, The Prince of Egypt, in January 1999.
Last year, Sheen made Port Talbot Paradiso, an affectionate documentary about the cinema, for BBC Radio 4, with contributions from contemporaries including Rob Brydon and the opera singer Rebecca Evans. It was described as a “place where dreams could flourish and imagination thrived”.
The building sat empty and decaying for years before the local authority bought it in 2009 to secure its future. The council is seeking an operator to take the building on, suggesting it could house a hall, fitness centre, cafe, shops and an office. Councillors are optimistic that a £5.5m redevelopment grant will be available from the Welsh government.
Steve Hunt, a cabinet member on Neath Port Talbot council, said it had been a long and difficult journey, “but to bring back the building in any capacity is the way forward”.
In an television interview with Melvyn Bragg, Hopkins recalled regular visits to the Plaza as a formative influence on his boyhood, and watching stars such as Humphrey Bogart.
“I was escaping, I think, from my sense of being a kind of clodhopper … I wanted to go to America, I had this dream of going there for years and years from a little kid, and I think it was because of this,” he said.
Many local people have fond memories of the glory days of the cinema. Stan Leyshon, a pensioner, said: “Every kid dreamed of being a screen hero, but for Burton and Hopkins, it all came true.”
