Save the Regent

Premier Anna Bligh faced some tricky questions about the Regent at People's Question Time on August 18. The full audio and transcripts are here, but here's what was said about the Regent:

MODERATOR: ... And certainly one of the most popular questions that was asked online was about the Regent Theatre in Brisbane, and there’s a question for the Premier: Kim, Bonnie, David, Lara, Michael, Belinda, Prue, Thomas, Daniel, and Brett are all interested in this issue but Damon of Red Hill says “Given that Premier Anna Bligh stated that the Regent Building is one of the last pieces of the cultural history of early life in our city, why was a February 2008 ministerial directive which protected the entire Regent Building rescinded in February 2009 in favour of a development which does not meet best practice standards for the preservation of a historic site.

PREMIER: Thank you very much for the question. I’ve actually been really pleased to see so many people take an interest in the future of the Regent Theatre. It says to me two things; one that people do care about the cultural heritage of our city and of our State, and two, that people have a real interest in good venues for theatre. And that’s certainly something that we’ll be looking at in our future investment in the arts, not just in the capital city but across Queensland. This issue has been a really difficult one. Basically this property is owned privately by a private company that chose to redevelop it. It’s currently running as a commercial cinema and it’s not making the money that it needs to for the owners to keep it as a cinema. The Brisbane City Council approved the original concept of the developer which would have seen I think the whole of the building converted into office space in the middle of the city. The State Government actually intervened and said no, we need to have another look at that and see what can be done to protect some of the heritage of this facility. What we did with that intervention was save the heritage façade of the building and when you walk into that old theatre you see the wonderful staircase etcetera, so we’ve saved all of that. And we’ve further, through negotiation, preserved the if you like the place of that building in the arts by putting in, requiring the developer to put in a small film theatre, thereby allowing film to continue in the space, not on the scale, the commercial scale that currently hasn’t been successful but on a smaller scale. And it will be a place that we will locate some of the film organisations of Queensland such as Screen Queensland and QPIX. This gives the building, in my view, the compromise, and I know people would have loved to have kept it but it wasn’t a performing theatre and it hasn’t been for many, many years. It’s failed as a commercial cinema. It’s owned privately, the people who own it have certain rights to redevelopment and that’s what’s happened.

MODERATOR: Alright well Josh at Newmarket makes the point that Brisbane is lacking in theatre space and you have an opportunity to help, to not only assist in holding onto our heritage but to make sure we don’t miss out on major theatrical productions because we’re too full. What would you say to Josh?

PREMIER: Josh I’m very pleased to hear from someone who likes the performing arts. Again Queensland actually has put in place substantial improvements and increases in performing arts facility, not just in the city but right across Queensland. Our Government has put in place a new theatre in Maryborough, a very substantial regional facility, the Brolga Theatre. We put in place facilities in Cairns and we’ve committed to further ones. We’ve upgraded and extended the performing facilities in Townsville, it opened last year. Here in the city, the capital city, we’ve put in place a new La Boite Theatre, we’ve upgraded extensively the Performing Arts Centre, and we also see the Queensland Theatre Company has a new purpose built facility under this government. We know that you’ve got to continue to look at those sorts of needs and facilities over time and we’ll do that. But there was a bit of a furphy put around that Queensland was missing out on big productions because we didn’t have anywhere big enough for them, that’s just not true. We’ve actually got the second biggest… Sorry, we’re one of only two big stages in Australia and that’s why we can compete and get things like the Paris Opera Ballet which can’t be staged in most other capital cities of Australia. So there are always booking issues as you would expect, but it’s not because of our capacity.

Sadly, the Premier did not answer the question I submitted regarding the length of the agreement for screenings at what Ms Bligh admits is a "small theatre" and the terms of the leases for QPix and Screen Queensland. Also, Ms Bligh's response regarding theatre capacity is misleading. Yes, the Lyric is a fine theatre - but it is only one theatre and Queensland cannot host two or more big shows simultaneously, as Sydney and Melbourne can. It's true that the Regent has not operated as a live venue for many years, but it once did and, with a sympathetic redevelopment, it could again. - Brett Debritz