The End of an Era

After the concert mentioned in the previous blog entry today, we repaired to the nearby Colonnade bar beneath the Theatre Royal. More theatrical than many a production on stage, this bar - as posters and actors' photographers testify -, pleasingly decorated in shades of deep red and gilt, is the quintessence of town which relished the many out-of-town try-outs in the days when the theatre was not dominated by jukebox musicals and incarnations of films.

And now the Ambassadors chain, which owns the Theatre, is closing down the pub on Thursday and taking hold of it, perhaps knocking it through to form part of the ground-floor lobby.

Another retreat is set to be lost, one which is as convivial on a quiet afternoon as it is during an evening throng.

Among those to lament this were a couple who had been at the concert, who also said that there is nothing like these concerts and pub in Tasmania. Residents are set to lose something as precious in its way as a public library, and I wrote in the Visitors' Book set out for farewell remarks: "Ambassadors are Traitors".