On 3 May 2021, filming for the first series of detective drama Karen Pirie (ITV, 2022, UK) took place at the St Andrews Cathedral grounds. This marked the first day of filming in St Andrews, which continued each weekday, and occasionally into the night, until 11 May (The Courier, 6 May 2021). 

Based on Fife author Val McDermid’s best-selling novel, The Distant Echo (2003), the three-part series follows the reopening of the unsolved murder case of Rosie Duff (Anna Russell-Martin), a 19-year-old barmaid found stabbed and strangled at the Cathedral ruins. Twenty-five years after the crime, Detective Karen Pirie is assigned to reinvestigate after a true-crime podcast sparks renewed public interest in the case (The Arts Desk, 10 October 2022).  

The small-town, coastal charm of St Andrews provides a distinct backdrop for the murder-mystery, a historic and idyllic setting shadowed by the weight of an unresolved crime. As executive producer Simon Heath claims, this made it vital for the production to dedicate a “significant chunk of time” to filming key exterior scenes across the town, capturing the eerie and unsettling atmosphere of its source material. Zach Wyatt, who portrays DS Phil Parhatka, states that filming amidst St Andrews’ “old history, castles and wide coastline really helped to […] give the show its slightly darker, modern detective flavour” (Karen Pirie Press Pack). 

To accommodate filming in St Andrews, temporary road restrictions and closures were implemented by Fife Council and managed by Crexcell Ltd. This included the suspension of the one-way system (Order 2013) on The Pends, and a ‘No Waiting / No Loading’ restriction on The Scores during weekdays, with filming presumed to have been paused on the weekend. The schedule of road closures provides insight into the production’s filming schedule. It suggests, for example, that filming took place on The Scores, between junctures for Golf Place and Murray Park in the afternoon to midnight on 3 May (Temporary Traffic Restrictions — Various Roads, St Andrews, April 2021). Between 5 and 7 May, filming took place between The Pends and Shorehead in the late evening to the early hours of the morning. This likely included filming at key locations, such as the harbour and the St Andrews Cathedral grounds. A selection of filming locations can be explored in the following: Interactive Map.

Chris Jenks, who portrays DC Jason Murray, fondly recalls filming in St Andrews, describing the town as “a really beautiful place.” Despite the dark and gritty nature of the murder-mystery, he remarks that “the whole series is a great advert for Scotland” (Karen Pirie Press Pack). Fife Councillor Jane Ann Liston shared a similar sentiment towards the show, telling The Courier, “it’s great to have a major TV production set in the town, as it will showcase how beautiful St Andrews looks” (The Courier, 6 May 2021).

A production team from World Productions, supported by TayScreen, brought experience from acclaimed dramas including Line of Duty (2012–2021) and The Bodyguard (2018) to St Andrews. The show received £364,000 of funding from Screen Scotland’s Broadcast Content Fund to support filming across Scotland, which created job opportunities and vital training for local cast and crew (Tayscreen, Scotland, 1 November 2022), while extras were recruited from St Andrews and nearby communities by Uni-versal Extras (Uni-versal Extras, “Karen Pirie”).

Emer Kenny, who served as an executive producer, writer, and actress on Karen Pirie, credited the input of a predominantly Scottish cast and crew with contributing to the show’s “authentic” feel (Assignment X, 24 November 2022).  Similarly, whilst reminiscing on her experience of filming in St Andrews, lead actress Lauren Lyle highlighted the involvement of local Fife residents.  Most notably, Lyle recalls a young female detective from Methil, the fictional hometown of Detective Pirie, who served as a police escort while filming took place at the Cathedral. The Methil detective became a great source of inspiration for Lyle, who described their interactions as though “looking into a mirror for Karen” (“Karen Pirie Press Pack”).

Heath recalls that “the town was really welcoming” to the cast and crew (TayScreen Scotland). The cast were accommodated by the five-star Fairmont Hotel, just three miles from the Cathedral, which doubled-up as a filming location. While the production’s stay was relatively short-lived, it was not without its challenges, as Heath explained: 

“Covid was still a major issue for us – we had a couple of delays to the shoot and we had to recast one of the smaller roles before we started filming.” (“Karen Pirie Press Pack”).

In May 2021, the advised health and safety protocol for film production across Scotland fell under the guidelines provided by the British Film Commission. According to Heath, time pressures imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic caused adjustments in the production timeline. For instance, while the original novel is set in winter, the adaptation shifted the setting to spring to align with the revised filming schedule (TayScreen Scotland).

Despite this, filming in St Andrews proceeded with minimal issues, benefitting from the emptiness of the town following a year of intermittent lockdowns. Lyle reflects on its eerily quiet atmosphere, noting that the town felt almost deserted. The Fairmont Hotel, for instance, remained largely empty aside from “a couple of golf tourists” in residence (The Sunday Post, 20 September 2022). 

Without the usual bustle of students, tourists and locals, the mid-pandemic stillness of St Andrews offered a distinctive backdrop for filming that perfectly captured the haunting atmosphere of McDermid’s novel. The town, caught in an unsettling moment of tranquility, allowed for a finished product which authentically portrays the sense of unrest at the heart of The Distant Echo. 

Jessica Johnson (2024) 

Works Cited:

Abbie Bernstein, “KAREN PIRIE: Series creator and actor Emer Kenny on new Britbox murder mystery – Exclusive Interview,” Assignment X, 24 November 2022.

Joanna Bremner, “My St Andrews: Fife author Val McDermid on her favourite things about the university town,” The Courier, 27 May 2024. 

British Film Commission, “Working Safely During COVID-19 in Film and High-end TV Drama Production,” 5 April 2023. 

Stephen Gallacher, “TV: Guilty – I stole the soap! Confessions of Karen Pirie crimefighter Lauren Lyle,” The Sunday Post, 20 September 2022.

Made in Scotland, “Karen Pirie,” Screen Scotland (Accessed November 19, 2024).

Neil Henderson. “Filming for a major new TV crime drama has started in St Andrews this week.” The Courier, 6 May 2021. 

Road Closures, “Temporary Traffic Restrictions — Various Roads, St Andrews,” April 2021.

Adam Sweeting, “Karen Pirie, ITV review – Cold Case Mystery drags itself across the Finish Line,” The Arts Desk, 10 October 2022.

TayScreen Scotland, “Major New ITV Crime Drama, Karen Pirie Has Received Huge Acclaim,” TayScreen Scotland, 1 November 2022.

Uni-versal Extras, “Karen Pirie.” (Accessed November 19, 2024).

Word Productions, “Karen Pirie Press Pack,” Itv.com, September 19, 2022.  

On 4 July 1931, the New Picture House (NPH) announced that their ‘magnificent cinema café’ would soon ‘complete Fife’s Super Cinema’. The ‘tastefully furnished’ café was set to add ‘the finishing touch to a truly super-cinema’; the jewel in its entertaining crown. Indeed, it went on to become much more than this, serving as a community hub and multifunctional venue in its own right. Yet the café had less than auspicious beginnings. 

First mooted in the St Andrews Citizen’s preview of NPH building plans from June 1930, the café was next mentioned in the newspaper’s published report from the Chief Constable of The Works Committee in July. The report noted the need for ‘movable tables and chairs’, yet seemed to sanction the café’s construction. In November, the NPH created a position for a young lady with tearoom experience, and in December, the Citizen’s formal preview of the newly constructed NPH noted its ‘smoking lounge and café’. But, despite these appearances, the café was not accessible to the public until July 1931, a full six months after the NPH opened its doors. 

It seems likely that the café fell at two hurdles: scope and staircases. An article in the Citizen from December 1930 noted the ‘tremendous last minute hustle’ involved in readying the NPH. Whilst the cinema was successfully hustled into existence, with a vigour that ‘the old grey city’ of St Andrews had apparently ‘seldom, if ever, witnessed’, the café did not make it through the initial and ambitious round of construction. The retirement of the NPH manager, Mr Symon, in March 1931 likely contributed to its further delay, and licencing peculiarities for tearooms, along with health and safety concerns, were additional impediments. Only in June 1931 was the tearoom finally approved by the Inspector of Places for Public Refreshment and the Town Council, following extensive debate on the café’s staircase, which directed café goers through the main cinema foyer. As a compromise, the NPH agreed to add an emergency exit directly from the café to the street at a later date.

Having reassured the relevant regulatory bodies, the NPH pulled its café into full swing from mid-July 1931. Their advert boxes in the Citizen show that it was initially marketed as a place to ‘take tea and refreshments’ after ‘the pictures’. It offered accompanying ‘music’ and was open between 2pm and 10pm, Monday to Saturday. It is unclear whether the music was live or recorded, but it was advertised as a café feature until November 1931. Two weeks after the café’s opening, the NPH advertisements emphasised that it was ‘open to the general public as well as patrons’, and within a month its opening hours were extended, from 2pm to 11pm. Evidently, the café had proved attractive enough to public and patrons alike to justify expanded opening times before its first month was through. 

In December 1931, the NPH placed a small advert for ‘a novel xmas party’ and suggested that arrangements could be made to host a gathering at the NPH with ‘tea or supper’. This advert represents the earliest evidence of the NPH’s exploration of the café’s varied utility and potential. Throughout December 1931, other Citizen articles illustrate how the café was otherwise incorporated into the NPH’s wider programme of community activities and commercial ventures. The café was used to entertain ‘residents of the Gibson Hospital and (…) ex-Service men’s widows and children’ after their invitation to a special matinee performance of City Lights, a popular romantic comedy by Charlie Chaplin. The tea was paid for by St Andrews’ Rotary Club but hosted by the café, and it is noteworthy that the occasion marked the NPH’s ‘first anniversary’. The decision to celebrate the NPH’s anniversary indicates the ambitions of NPH management to establish the cinema as a multifunctional and community-focused enterprise. 

In late December, a letter to the Citizen’s editor decorated the NPH with praise for their provision of ‘special facilities’ for Gallipoli veterans during their reunion, and related how the café space would offer a gathering place for the ‘whole party’, including veterans’ wives, to take tea after a showing of Tell England; a drama focused on the Battle of Gallipoli. The veterans’ reunion of 1931 marks the first in a series of NPH events and interactions with past and present military personnel, and likely laid the foundations for its wartime and post-war engagements across subsequent decades.

Despite its meandering path to prominence, the NPH café established itself as an integral feature of the NPH within half a year; facilitating philanthropic efforts that recruited loyal audiences, and widening the NPH’s scope as a venue. It enjoyed a continuous evolution along these lines until at least 1950; before, during and after WWII, and throughout brought St Andrews its own, bespoke, cinema café culture. 

Audrey McBride (2020)

Works cited 

St Andrews Citizen, 12^th July 1930 – 5 December 1931. (All weekly editions). 

‘New Cinema for St Andrews’, St Andrews Citizen, 28^th June 1930.

‘St Andrews Town Council’, St Andrews Citizen, 12^th July 1930.

‘Young ladies with tea-room experience wanted’, St Andrews Citizen, 15^th November 1930.

‘St Andrews New Picture House’, St Andrews Citizen, 13^th December 1930.

‘The New Picture House’, St Andrews Citizen, 20^th December 1930. 

‘Tearoom Manageress wanted’, St Andrews Citizen, 14^th March 1931. 

‘Tearoom at New Picture House’, St Andrews Citizen, 13^th June 1931. 

‘Waitress Wanted’, St Andrews Citizen, 20^th June 1931. 

‘New Picture House Café’, St Andrews Citizen, 4^th July 1931. 

‘A Novel Xmas Party’, St Andrews Citizen, 5^th December 1931.

‘Birthday Celebration of New Picture House’, St Andrews Citizen, 19^th December 1931. 

‘New Picture House Birthday Celebration’, St Andrews Citizen, 24^th December 1931.

‘Gallipoli Veterans’ Re-union (To the Editor.),’ St Andrews Citizen, 24^th December 1931. 

‘Gallipoli Survivor’s Re-union (To the Editor.),’ St Andrews Citizen, 9^th January 1932. 

Gillespie and Scott Drawings, St Andrews University Library (Bundle 2071). 

‘117 North Street, The New Picture House’, Historic Environment Scotland, http://portal.historicenvironment.scot/designation/LB51110 Last accessed 29th March 2020. 

‘New Picture House’, Dictionary of Scottish Architects 1660-1980,http://www.scottisharchitects.org.uk/building_list.php?bsstr=&bstwn=&bsisl=&bscnt=&bsctr=&bsnme=new+picture+house&bscls=Any&bsarc=&bscln=  Last accessed 29^thMarch 2020. 

Christmas day in St Andrews in 1950 differed from previous years. While recent years had been unseasonably warm, on this morning the townspeople were greeted by a glistening blanket of frost. The overnight temperature had slumped to fifteen degrees below freezing. The children met this cold weather with delight as they tried out their new ice skates, and games of curling were played on the skating pond (St Andrews Citizen, 30 December 1950). Though there was holiday merriment, St Andrews was still suffering some of the hardships brought on by war, with residents experiencing power cuts due to fuel rationing (St Andrews Citizen, 23 December 1950). This burden was not reflected on screen, as three light-hearted musicals dominated the programme across the town’s two cinemas, The New Picture House and The Cinema House. 

At the time going to the cinema was an especially popular leisure activity during bank holidays. To escape the cold, St Andrews residents could enjoy some special Christmas events. The New Picture House and The Cinema House were both open and showing films on Christmas day. The New Picture House had a very popular café and smoking lounge. For those desperate to escape the kitchen, the cinema even offered a special Christmas day dinner (Citizen, 9 December 1950).  

Meanwhile at The Cinema House, the St Andrews branch of the British Legion sponsored a special children’s showing of Make Mine Music (Geronimi, Kinney, Luske & Meador, USA, 1946) (Citizen, 16 December 1950). Make Mine Music, an animated Disney film comprising ten unrelated vignettes set to music, ranging from The Andrews Sisters to Sergei Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf,” was originally intended as a sequel to Fantasia (Grant & Huemer, USA, 1940) but was delayed with the onset of War (Nicholson, 2002, 125). The Cinema House had a packed schedule for the whole family on Christmas Day; illustrating the important social role cinemas occupied in the community. 

The main showing at The Cinema House was the musical One Touch of Venus (Seiter, USA, 1948). The children’s special showing began at 10:30am, with a final showing starting at 9:10pm. Based on a Broadway play of the same name, One Touch of Venus stars Ava Gardner as the love goddess Venus, who was a statue in a department store before a kiss from a timid window dresser (Robert Walker), brings her to life. The British publicity emphasised that Gardner had been cast due to her resemblance to the Anatolian Venus statue (“Beauty by the Inch”). Indeed, the film is best remembered today as a star vehicle for Ava Gardner, who would be compared to Venus for the rest of her career (Williams, 2020, 45).

Across the road at the New Picture House, they were playing One Sunday Afternoon (Walsh, USA, 1948), the third film adaptation of this Broadway musical. The film was intended as a star vehicle for Dennis Morgan, who had shone in My Wild Irish Rose (Butler, USA, 1947), a film which had played at the New Picture House in April 1949 (Citizen, 30 April 1949). However, One Sunday Afternoon was not popular and barely turned a profit (Glancy, 1995, 66). Despite his popularity at the time, Morgan and his films are largely forgotten today. 

The presence and popularity of the cinema on Christmas Day highlights the hugely significant place that the New Picture House and The Cinema House occupied within the town as both entertainment and social centres. This post-war era of austerity, before the television boon, was the peak period for cinema attendance in Britain. A Christmas day trip to the cinema offered a chance to meet friends and, given the Hollywood musicals on show, escape from the cold winter of 1950. 

Brooke Daley (2020)

Works Cited: 

St. Andrews Citizen, 1949 – 1950

“Beauty by the inch”. Film News Sheet from Eros Films Ltd, 21 June 1950.

Glancy, H. Mark. “Warner Bros Film Grosses, 1921-51; the William Schaefer Ledger” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 15/1 (1995), 55-73.

Griffiths, Trevor. “A Seven-day Wonder? Cinema and the Scottish Sabbath” in The Cinema and Cinema-going in Scotland, 1896-1950 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012), 138-170.

Nicholson, Stuart. “Make Mine Music and the End of the Swing Era”. In The Cartoon Music Book, edited by Daniel Goldmark & Yuval Taylor (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2002).

Williams, Michael. “A Venus in marble and Bakelite: Ava Gardner and One Touch of Venus (1948)” Celebrity Studies11/1 (2020), pp.43-59.

The operetta enjoyed a different kind of rendition when put on by the St Andrews Amateur Operatic Society for the first time in St Andrews in 1966. The Society formed in 1939 to gather lovers of opera and create a base from which they could produce local plays and public performances of the masterworks of world opera together with some of their own favourites (Partial Personal Correspondence: NODA).

Instead of taking on the town’s well-known Byre Theatre, trademark host of many local plays and productions at the time, The Society’s performance of The Gypsy Baron ran in the New Picture House (NPH) on the 14, 15and 16 February 1966 (The Citizen, 12 February 1966). The Society began its relationship with the NPH – which was a site long used for local amateur shows – in 1947 with a production of “The Pirates of Penzance” (The Citizen, 8 February 1947) and throughout the 1950s both the NPH and The Citizen had well-established connections with The Society.

The Baron was – unlike many previous Society productions – intensively advertised by The Citizenfor one month in advance: every week a poster was included between NPH and Cinema House programmes on page four of The Citizen. The phrase “show business” is studded across a large 22 January advertisement of the Baron. Underneath it reads, from the “stables that brought you the winners “Oklahoma” and “Brigadoon”” (The Citizen, 22 January 1966).

The Society’s method of advertising is doubly effective. On the one hand, the Society speaks to mainstream film production by invoking the language of Hollywood (“show business”) and two of Hollywood’s famous 1950s productions. On the other, the Society actually refers to the productions of the same name put on by the Society in the 1950s, which St Andrews locals may recall. It thus doubles The Baron’s chances of success by invoking two strands of popular heritage: that of global Hollywood and that of the local Society and their history with amateur productions in the NPH.

Moreover, the Society plays on the local sensibilities by targeting the family audience: The Citizen advertises the production as a “show for all the family” (The Citizen, 22 January 1966), while another issue reads “Bring Your Family to this Sparkling Show” (The Citizen, 15 January 1966). This serves both to draw local opera fans (and families and friends of the performers) to the cinema and potentially to bring an existing cinema audience to the local show.

The premiere and the whole three days were, indeed, successful. The Baron was perhaps unsurprisingly praised in a two-page glorious review in The Citizen, which proclaimed “A revel of gaiety and colour”, “flawless and effortless”, with its performances commended as well as its family appeal (The Citizen, 19 February 1966). The presence of critical engagement when it came to this, and many later, local theatre productions indicates that St Andrews continuously supported the efforts of local societies throughout the twentieth century.

The brief run of The Gypsy Baron shows a Scottish picture house going against the norm of allowing mainstream film exclusivity in UK programmes as the NPH, together with the local press, supported the successful exhibition of a local production put on by an Amateur Operatic Society. The desire to reach a different audience and to connect art forms can still be seen today with performances of operatic and stage shows, transmitted ‘live’ on cinema screens across the country. The operatic society also continues, now operating under the name the St Andrews Musical Society.

Mina Radovic (2018)

Works cited

The Citizen, 8 February 1947; 2.

The Citizen, 15 January 1966; 22 January 1966; 29 January 1966; 5 February 1966; 12 February 1966; 4.

“Glittering Operatic Society Show” in The Citizen, 22 February 1966; 3.

National Operatic and Dramatic Association (NODA)

Advertisement for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
in The St. Andrews Citizen, 5 March, 1949.

In 1949, The St. Andrews Film Society – formerly known as The Dundee and St. Andrews Film Society – relaunched on its own, with an opening performance of Raymond Bernard’s Les Otages. For this opening event at the New Picture House on 20 February, each of the 150 members in attendance were personally greeted by Mr. A. B. Paterson, the original founder of The Byre Theatre and a key figure in St. Andrews’ artistic community. While the society would become an integral part of the town’s artistic community – through its Sunday evening screenings – its second performance on Sunday March 6^thhighlighted a series of challenges facing the newly-formed society.

The film chosen for this second event was Robert Wiene’s classic German Expressionist film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) (St Andrews Citizen, 19 February 1949). The choice of Caligari is significant for a number of reasons, not least as a German film made in the aftermath of the First World War, which was now screened in the aftermath of the Second World War. The choice also shows how the reformed St. Andrews Film Society sought to portray itself to the town. By picking Les Otages and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligarias their first two screenings, the society was foregrounding international films already celebrated within the film canon. It wanted to educate the town on films which were thought of as well-crafted, and which created a counterpart to the Hollywood imports often shown throughout the week.

Yet, according to a review of the Caligari screening in The St. Andrews Citizen, the audience were far from impressed (The Citizen, 12 March 1949). The article states that when made in 1919, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was a film intent on ‘horrifying’ but now in 1949, the ‘crude technique, compared with films of today, relieved the tension for the St Andrews audience by the comic effect of its most dramatic moments.’ 30 years after its initial release, Caligari was seen to have lost its sinister atmosphere and frightening impact – audiences were now laughing at scenes which had once evoked fear, and comparing Caligari’stechnical aspects to modern films of the 1940s.

The idea of technology failing to transition well through the years is also apparent in another aspect of the screening. According to the newspaper, the society were informed that the film took 81 minutes to show, but this was on the old, silent projector, whereas ‘on the high speed modern sound projector, the film went through in an hour’, significantly transforming the film for the modern audience. The screening was instead presented as ‘an interesting study’ which ‘underlined the technical advance in 30 years’, showing how these two negative aspects of the screening (the unexpected laughter, and erroneous speed) were used to promote apparent modern ‘advances’. Whilst the aim of the screening was to appreciatethe film for its historical and cinematic importance, it was used instead to show how far technology has developed in the time since its original release.

The screening of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari highlights a dislocation between what The Film Society thought audiences should see and what the citizens of St. Andrews wanted to see. Looking back at the screening now, we can see a society trying to educate audiences in the canonical titles of film history, and whilst this may not have always been successful, we can appreciate the efforts to find a space in the town to view and study film not only as entertainment but also as an art form.

Lyndsay Townsend (2018)

Works Cited:

St. Andrews Citizen, February 19, 1949.

St. Andrews Citizen, March 12, 1949.

1943: The allies capture Tripoli from the Nazis; Television Broadcasting continues to be suspended; George Harrison is born; and two St. Andrews students begin their film magazine, Monarch News

The ambitious Monarch – a hand-made magazine – was produced from 1943-1944. Manufactured against the backdrop of war, it provides a valuable glimpse into the period from the perspective of students, prospective film critics and members of the armed forces – all rolled into one. Founded by two St Andrews Students, Rollo Mitchell and Bob Edwards, and produced in Cowdenbeath, Monarch’s influences, and reports, came from far and wide: from London, to Hollywood and even Egypt.

The magazine is a testament to the enduring popularity of film throughout the war, highlighting and discussing many war films across its pages. It included film reviews which often celebrated patriotic war productions, such as In Which We Serve (Noel Coward, 1942, Great Britain), which the magazine praised as ‘one of the best films we have ever made’ [Monarch News, May 1943, issue 7].

The pages of the magazine also reveal the impact of war on the nation.  Conscription, bombing and rationing are all mentioned in the articles, while these challenges are more acutely felt in Monarch’s own efforts to source film and complete work on its own short production.

From May 1943, Monarch would also include short cuttings of ‘Stars Who Serve,’ which would detail each actor’s latest films alongside a small portrait. Star profiles included the likes of the British star, ‘Major’ David Niven, member of the Rifle Brigade (Monarch News, May 1943, Issue 7), and ‘Lieutenant’ Laurence Olivier who joined the Fleet Air Arm (Monarch News, July 1943, Issue 10). American stars like ‘Lieutenant’ James Stewart were also included in the sections (Monarch News, July 1943, Issue 9).

The ‘Stars Who Serve’ sections were cut outs from other newspapers and work to emphasise the film industry’s contribution to the war effort. Even those involved in propaganda films, like ‘Lieutenant’ Olivier, felt a strong obligation to ‘sign up’.

While stitched together in Scotland, each issue of Monarch was filled with references to war, both at home and further afield. Weekly interviews with the magazine’s collaborators, titled ‘Confess, Brother! Confess!”, detail the intimacies of the lives of these young adults. When asked what the worst experience of his life was, ‘photographic expert’ John Short answered: ‘The Blitz in Greenock’.

Even the satirical ‘Sadie Tripe: Don’t Believe it!’ column, would address female volunteering for the WAAF (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force) or the WRENS (Women’s Royal Navy Service), noting that Sadie knew it was her ‘turn to do my bit’ [Monarch News, January 1944, Issue 18].

The magazine even included articles in two issues from an ‘overseas correspondent’; overseas because he was serving with the armed forces. One of these articles discussed ‘South African Cinema’ (Monarch News, October 1943, 14), while the other was entitled ‘Church Bigotry versus Sunday Cinema’ (Monarch News, September 1943, 13). In discussing the relationship between cinema, war and Sunday screenings, the author, R. G Matthews (RAF), expressed his frustration at the closure of cinemas on Sundays, arguing that they could provide a source of moral education. Matthews also tells readers about his experience working in South African cinemas – an article he sends from his new post in Egypt!

The magazine’s contributors – predominantly young men – were inevitably also involved in war work. President Bob Edwards was waiting for ‘summons’, and producer and star of Monarchproduction, And So Goodbye, Rollo Mitchell was a member of the RAF. Rollo’s wartime role can be traced throughout the magazine. Monarcheven includes a newspaper’s report on Mitchell’s success in Frankfurt, where his plane came in on a “wing and a prayer” (Monarch News, February 1944, Issue 19).

While wartime is a recurrent topic throughout the articles, it does not hamper the predominantly optimistic tone of the magazine. Just as wartime film can be read as an escape from day to day life, Monarch allowed these young adults a chance to explore their own interests, away from the pressures of war, jobs or university.

Francesca Woulfe (2018)