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Cinemas are one of those local history topics that are guaranteed to get people enthusiastically excitable. Everyone of a certain age in the city has their story of where they (or their granny) use to go to the pictures. Mention the name La Scala and you’ll more than likely get a knowing nod and an utterance of the term fleapit: mention the Classic and you’ll get either a complete denial or a sharp intake of breath. Both names were different guises of the same establishment. A recent planning application for its long-vacant building provides me with an opportune excuse, as if one was needed, to reflect on its surprisingly long, interesting history, to fill a few gaps and to correct a few misconceptions. A remarkable and largely overlooked survivor, it was at times pioneering, at times pious and at others plain seedy.

Our story goes all the way back to 1862 when a 1,500 seat music hall, the New Royal Alhambra, was opened at 50 Nicolson Street by William Paterson. This replaced his earlier venture – the Alhambra – that had opened only the year before and which was Edinburgh’s first music hall. Its wooden structure was soon condemned and a replacement was built directly across the road, making it the first such purpose-built venue in the city. Designed by architect David MacGibbon, the interior was modelled on Broughton Street’s newly completed Royal Queen’s Theatre (better known as the Theatre Royal). There was no need to replicate the exterior however as our subject is somewhat unusual in not having one of note. It is located behind an older tenement at number 46 Nicolson Street and cannot be seen from the street. This plot had previously been used as a horse-hirer’s yard and was accessed down narrow lanes from that were later roofed over. The grand opening took place on Monday 29th September and prominent adverts were taken out on the front page of all the main local newspapers. From these were are provided with a very thorough description of the entertainment and the premises.

Advert from the front page of The Scottish Press, 30th September 1862. This occupied fully two-thirds of the first column of the paper (I have arranged it in two halves here).

The venture was a resounding success but when Paterson tried to take the place upmarket and focus on stage plays – as The Princess’s Theatre – it faltered. In 1867 he returned it to variety performance but sold it the following year to Alexander Duncan McNeill. It was taken upmarket again as the Royal Princess’s. In 1869 McNeill put on a play from his own pen, The Gloamin’ and the Mirk: or a Story of Modern Athens. A satire on Edinburgh, this proved to be so popular that it ran for 15 months. He died in November 1884 at the age of just 55 from cirrhosis of the liver. His son and deputy manager, William Alexander McNeill, continued to run the business but it closed two years later in the face of stiff competition from the Theatre Royal and Royal Lyceum.

Comparison of the 1876 and 1944 OS Town Plans centred on 50 Nicolson Street, showing the original Royal Princess Theatre and later as the La Scala Cinema. Note the building is surrounded on all sides, accessible only by two narrow lanes, therefore cannot be seen from any street. Move the slider to compare. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

One Samuel Horatio St Austin attempted to take over the licence in September 1886 but was turned down on a number of grounds. These included fire safety, the proximity of residential tenements and inadequate ventilation (as we will find out later, these issues have been repeated sticking points in planning applications for the site in recent years). A new occupant was eventually found in 1891 when the lease was taken over by The Salvation Army. With minor alterations they inaugurated it as a meeting hall (or Barracks in the quasi-military parlance of their organisation) on March 24th 1892. The opening ceremony was conducted in the presence of Catherine Bramwell-Booth, daughter of the Army’s founder “General” William Booth. Recent stripping of the interior of the auditorium has revealed a large, well-preserved Salvation Army crest painted on the rear wall (see picture gallery at the end of the post).

Advert for the opening of the Salvation Army barracks at 50 Nicolson Street, Edinburgh Evening News, March 21st 1892

The Sally Army remained at number 50 for twenty years, until February 1912 when the hall was purchased by Photoplays Ltd. This company was controlled by cinema pioneer Ralph Pringle. It was a time of rapid expansion of this new form of entertainment and between 1910 and 1914 no fewer than 29 picture houses would be opened in the Edinburgh and Leith. Most of these were converted from existing halls and theatres and Pringle totally re-constructed and re-decorated his new venue at a cost of £1,600, to designs by architect Hippolyte Blanc.

Cinema openings and closures in Edinburgh, Leith and Portobello, pre-WW2. The period from 1910 to 1914 saw a huge expansion.

The curtain went up at the La Scala Electric Theatre on December 30th that year, its namesake being the historic Teatro alla Scala opera house in Milan. This exotic name was much in vogue at the time, Scotland is littered with former cinemas of this name. The capacity was 800, with “about 450” in the balcony and “about 250” in the stalls below (clearly something doesn’t add up here). The projection box was located at the rear of the stalls, under the balcony. The first films shown were the Western Custer’s Last Fight and The Shuttle of Fate, a film about a shipwreck. A continuous daily programme was shown thereafter from 10:30AM to 11:45PM, changing twice a week. Prices at opening ranged from 4d in the stalls to 9d in the grand circle.

Advert for the opening week of the La Scala, Edinburgh Evening News, 2nd January 1913

It was an instant hit, its selection of films praised by the Evening News as having a “high standard of merit.” Like many early cinemas, variety turns were put on between shows, for which there was a 12ft deep stage. Such acts were known as Lantern Coolers as they had originated with the need to allow projectors to cool in between reels. The evenings were entirely given over to films however, these being shown exclusively after 630PM. Pringle built up a small chain across Scotland and the north of England, including two houses called Pringle’s Picture Palace in Edinburgh. His gilded RP monogram persisted long afterwards in the gilded décor around the balcony, indeed it is still very visible to this day in recent auction photos.

Interior of the La Scala, auction images from 2015. Close up of the gilded details around the balcony, notice the RP monogram (Ralph Pringle) within the torch cartouche.

Ralph Pringle quit the cinema industry almost as quickly as he had gotten into it and sold all his shares in the holding company in 1914. The -Electric Theatre part of the name was dropped two years later and it became simply La Scala. The 1928 Kinematograph Year Book records the venue was managed by Miss M. Baillie and its prices ranged from 5d to 2s. The age of the Talkies arrived in February 1930 when an RCA sound system was installed. The first such film shown was The Drake Case starring Gladys Brockwell and Robert Frazer

Edinburgh Evening News, 11th February 1930. Adverts for the first Talkies at the La Scala

This show was Brockwell’s final film, she had died in July the previous year in a car accident in Holywood. The old silent programme supported by variety artistes (“Smart & Wilson, the Comedy Duo” and “Tom Robinson, the Singing Pit Boy“) had been run right up to this change of technology.

Poster for “The Drake Case” a murder mystery and courtroom drama in which Gladys Brockwell (left) plays a maid accused of killing the lady of the house. In the foreground is the male lead Forrest Stanley, with Robert Frazer behind.Via IMDB.

A further change came four years later when in 1934 the cinema joined the circuit of Peter Crerar. Except for a burglary in May 1935, when a days takings were stolen by blowing the door off the manager’s safe, it led a relatively quiet, low-key life thereafter. Like most small, first-generation picture houses it was able to survive by undercutting its ticket prices relative to the wave of fashionable large Super Cinemas built in the ‘thirties. For example, in 1950 it was charging 1s for the stalls; the New Victoria along the road on Clerk Street started at 1s 9d. This required it to be run on the tightest of margins and there was little leftover for investment in the place. As such these sorts of houses generally declined over time, earning reputations for themselves as being “flea pits“. The La Scala would become known in the Southside by the derisory nickname of the Scabby Lala.

Entrance to the La Scala in 1971, advertising The Aristocats and Charlie: The Lonesome Cougar on show all week. Picture credit Kevin & Henry Wheelan, via Edinburgh & Scottish Collection, Edinburgh City Libraries

This strategy paid off and the La Scala survived, outlasting far grander venues and the even dingier ones too. A name came change on 27th April 1974 when it became the Classic after being taken over by the London-based chain of that name. This company had hit on a way to make these small, decrepit cinemas pay: pornography. They told Allen Wright, the Scotsman’s cinema reviewer, that takings more than doubled after the introduction of X-rated films to the Nicolson Street playbill. This was a shrewd move as Edinburgh’s principle other house of cinematic ill repute, the (Racey) Jacey, had closed the previous May, leaving a smut-shaped gap in the market. In Another Edinburgh, an alternative guide to the city published in 1976, it is wryly noted that the establishment supported the British film industry by “screening sex – Swedish sex – Swiss sex – Siberian Sex, sextcetera“. There were also “liberal doses” of Kung Fu and “occasional worthies” late at night on Friday and Saturday. In the 2016 novel A Decent Ride by Irvine Welsh, the protagonist credits his visits to the Classic with being the source of his sexual prowess.

Evening News advert for the programme at the Classic showing the odd mix of X-rated and classic films on offer, 21st August 1982

In November 1974 the Salon on Baxter’s Place, another renowned fleapit, closed making the Classic the city’s oldest operational picture house. In the spirit of its old tradition of stage entertainment, in 1976 it was a Festival Fringe venue for a show called Tubular Balls. New management came in 1979 with a takeover by Lew Grade’s Associated Communications, by which time the chain had grown to 141 theatres. Grade lost control of his conglomerate in 1982 to Robert Holmes à Court, who immediately began to break it up. This resulted in the cinemas being bought by the American B-movie film producers Cannon Group.

The Classic, as it then was, in March 1986, advertising the screening of “Erotic Awakening” and “Nympho Superstars”. Notice the gap site on the left as a result of the fire and demolition of the Uptown. Credit, TSPL

Understandably, both premises and patrons kept a relatively low profile and as such very little can be found in contemporary newspapers about it. One of the few incidents of note happened on April 26th 1979 when a fire broke out that required 50 firefighters and six appliances from four stations to bring under control. The alarm was raised at 1:30AM in the morning when residents of the tenement above found smoke coming through their floorboards. In 1982, one customer was fined £120 for Breach of the Peace by Edinburgh District Court for assaulting an usherette. Philip Boyle, 24, had been drinking and had retried to the Classic to “sleep it off”. When Ruby McClory tried to rouse him from his slumber by shining her torch in his face, he slapped her, grabbed the torch and threw it away. It hit Donald Tindell on the head to his injury.

A more serious fire occurred next door at the recently-opened Uptown restaurant and disco on the morning of 12th April that year when hay bales brought in as props for a Wild West theme night caught fire. £50,000 of damage was caused to the disco – on the first floor – although the restaurant below was largely untouched. Seven months later, on the morning of 15th November, fire returned to the premises and this time finished what it had started. Such was the ferocity of this blaze that the gutted building had to be demolished the next day. Somehow, the cinema survived these three fires largely unscathed.

The Uptown Restaurant and Disco the morning after the April fire. Seven months later a more terminal fire would result in the on-the-spot demolition of the building. The entrance to the cinema can be seen just to the right of the lamp post. Via Trove.Scot, SC1465858

Cannon sold the cinema in March 1986 to local businessman and former lower-league footballer Jim Wight (probably as a result of acquiring the bigger and better ABC on Lothian Road). It was briefly renamed first The Cinema before settling on the Metro, although both names seem to have been used side-by-side at this time. Wight told the Evening News that his mother disapproved of the adult content of his investment and was no longer talking to him. His initial plan was to renovate and increase the capacity of the cinema, open a restaurant and show a mixed bill of film and stage shows suitable for a family audience. The pornographic programme persisted however and Wight soon seems to have given up on the scheme. The final X-rated showings seem to have taken place during the week beginning 27th October that year, closing to a headline stage show by risqué clubland comedian Alec “Happy” Howden. The doors closed for the last time and the mantle of oldest cinema in the city was passed to the Cameo. This had originally opened in 1914 as The King’s and retains that accolade to this day. It was then sold to gambling entrepreneur Henry Spurway, whose company Him Sintar (Racing) Ltd converted it into Scotland’s first “betting parlour“: Live races were beamed on to the big screen by satellite.

Evening News Advert for Him Sintar (Racing) Ltd at 50 Nicolson Street, 2nd April 1987

Spurway’s venture does not seem to have lasted long either. An application for conversion into a live music venue was refused in 1990 on account of the potential for noise problems to affect the surrounding flats. Instead the following year it became the New Empire bingo hall, this name being transplanted up Nicolson Street from the Empire Bingo Hall. This had been located in the former Empire Theatre but had recently been served notice to quit its home ahead it being converted into the Festival Theatre. The name changed to Premier Bingo around 2000, in which form it continued – in an ever more dilapidated state – until closure in 2015. Permission was granted in 2013 for change of use to a “dance hall or discotheque“, although no changes to the premises were at that time proposed. This did however allow it to be used as once again as a Fringe venue, branded as the Laughing Horse and Live at the Empire. It also briefly housed the Sunday Assembly, an “atheist church”.

Premier Bingo days in 2009, selectively coloured Google Streetview image.

A series of applications were next made by the J D Wetherspoon chain in 2014 and 2015 for conversion into one of their trademark large public houses. These were refused on the grounds of inadequate ventilation and noise control. Wetherspoons bought the building for £440,000 in 2015 and in 2018 managed to have a revised application approved. This was contingent on installing a kitchen limited to reheating food using microwaves, panini presses and toaster ovens only, to prevent a smell nuisance from cooking smells venting from the kitchen. The owners were unhappy with this compromise as they contended that to make converting a historic building profitable they would have to offer a full food service. They successfully made a further application was in 2021 to remove the restrictive clauses whereby a full kitchen could be used with a recirculating extractor system. This application was given three years to complete, however the permission lapsed without ever being taken forward.

The building was instead put up for sale in April 2024, by which time a leaking roof had allowed substantial internal decay to occur. It was finally sold at auction in June 2025 for a price over £400,000. Pictures from the auction show the building is in a partially stripped state internally, with much of the ceiling missing as a result of a collapse caused by water ingress. Despite the damage, what is Edinburgh’s oldest intact cinema interior is in an remarkable state of preservation all things considered. Surviving details include Ralph Pringle’s gilded monograms around the balcony from 1912. Even more remarkable is a large Salvation Army crest painted on the wall behind the proscenium from the 1890s. It feels an exceptional oversight that this century-old interior was never listed and yet somehow endured. In April 2026 a planning application was made to turn the building into a large cafe-cum-venue by its new owners, Our Public, an independent coffee and bakery chain based in the East Midlands of England. Lets hope it can survive the attention of the very stark, fashionably Scandinavian aesthetic of these gourmet croissant merchants.

Interior of the La Scala, auction images from 2015. Stairs up to the balcony.Interior of the La Scala, auction images from 2015. Note behind and above the bingo prize board the faded, painted plaster wall which shows the Salvation Army’s crest. In a closer inspection, the words “Blood and Fire” can be read within the circle and “The Salvation Army” on the ribbon below. This is conclusive evidence that the cinema was a conversion of the Salvation Army hall, rather than a new-build.Interior of the La Scala, auction images from 2015. Close up of the painted Salvation Army crest on the far wall.Interior of the La Scala, auction images from 2015. View across the balcony showing the roof structure.

The history of the tenement above the cinema, at 46 Nicolson Street, has been researched and written-up by Diarmid Mogg for his excellent Tenement Town blog.

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Manc AvGeek @[email protected] · 2026-07-05 · 20:44 UTC

Photo of the Day 5th July 2026.