Small town Scottish cinema once saved by Dame Judi Dench for sale for £275,000

The community-owned Oban Phoenix Cinema has been closed since the end of May after a decline in audience numbers and rising costs. The cinema was put into provisional liquidation in June, with all eight team members made redundant.

Trustees of the cinema earlier described their “great sadness” at its closure.

The cinema, which has two screens, is on the market for offers over £275,000, with cinema equipment also being sold by DM Hall on behalf of liquidators.

The cinema has faced many battles to survive over the years. Dame Judi joined a campaign in 2011 to keep the films running at the Oban cinema, which she used to attend while on family holidays to the west coast.

Earlier recalling former visits to the theatre with her husband Michael Williams, who died in 2001, Dame Judi said: “[We] came to Oban 34 years ago. We came up with a tent and a very small daughter.

“We came up every single year, not only to Oban, but to Plockton and as far as Skye. We didn’t come to go to the cinema, but if you have rain after rain after rain, and you have exhausted walking and all those kind of things, the Highland Theatre was a wonderful place where you could go and dry off your clothes.”

Dame Judi became a patron of the Oban Phoenix along with Dougray Scott, Tilda Swinton, John Hannah, Rowan Atkinson, Ed Crozier, Robbie Coltrane, Bill Forsyth, Clive Anderson and the Duke of Argyll.

The Duke hosted a fundraising dinner at his Inveraray Castle in 2011, which Dame Judi addressed. The cinema is mostly set out over a ground floor area with offices and storage on the first floor.

Screen one is the largest of the auditoriums and has seating for 148 people, while screen two has 22 seats.

Scottish TV and film director Donald Coutts, who was previously involved with Cromarty Film Society in the Highlands, told the BBC that many community cinemas were struggling.

He said: "I think it is a really difficult time for cinema. Video and on-demand platforms have made the role of cinema questionable because now films are being premiered and released in a much cheaper way."

Mr Coutts added: "That experience of watching a film with people you know is wonderful. With the closing of the cinema in Oban, it's sad if that experience is not reopened to people."

Joint provisional liquidators, Blair Milne and David Meldrum of accountancy firm Azets, reportedly said they were trying to find a buyer keen to continue operating a cinema on the site.

Within a fortnight of the closure, the liquidators had already received "an encouraging number of expressions of interest for the assets”, according to reports.

Meanwhile, Dame Judi has lent her support to another cultural campaign in Scotland - the saving of the Screen Machine mobile cinema in the Highlands and Islands.

Earlier this year, pupils in Barra secured the help of Dame Judi in an effort to save the popular mobile cinema service from the threat of closure. Dame Judi wrote to then first minister Humza Yousaf to highlight the cause.

The mobile cinema’s future has been secured for another two years after funding was found.