The Regal Theatre was a single-screen cinema located in Connaught Place, the central business district of New Delhi, India. One of the earliest purpose-built cinemas in the capital, it operated for over eight decades and was widely regarded as a landmark of Connaught Place before its closure in 2017.
| Type | Single-screen cinema (former) |
|---|---|
| Location | Connaught Place, New Delhi, India |
| Opened | 1932 |
| Closed | 2017 |
| Status | Defunct |
Regal Theatre was built during the early years of New Delhi as the new imperial capital of British India. It was designed by the British architect Walter Sykes George, who worked on several buildings in Lutyens' Delhi. Situated in the inner circle of Connaught Place, the cinema was integrated into the colonnaded Georgian-style commercial precinct that came to define the area.
The theatre opened in 1932 and quickly became a fashionable venue in pre-Independence Delhi, hosting film screenings as well as live performances, including stage plays, ballet and musical recitals during its early decades. In its later years it functioned primarily as a mainstream Hindi and English-language cinema.
Like many other single-screen halls across India, Regal faced a steady decline in audiences from the late 1990s onwards owing to competition from multiplexes, changing viewing habits and the rising cost of maintaining heritage premises. The cinema closed on 31 March 2017, with its final screenings—Mera Naam Joker and Sangam—chosen as a tribute to its association with classic Hindi cinema.
Regal was among a cluster of historic cinemas in central Delhi that included Plaza, Rivoli and Odeon. It was associated with hosting public appearances by figures from Indian cinema and was a recurring reference point in writing on the social and cultural history of Connaught Place. Its closure was widely covered in the Indian press as marking the end of an era for single-screen cinema in the capital.