Curtains of Smoke: Remembering The Futurist and the Enduring Drama of Cuban Cigars

There was a time when Scarborough didn’t just face the sea — it faced the future.

And nowhere was that more vivid than in the sweeping white curve of The Futurist Theatre. Built in 1921, standing proudly along Foreshore Road, it wasn’t just another seaside stage. It was Scarborough’s promise to itself: that glamour and culture belonged just as much here on Yorkshire’s edge as they did in London or New York.

I was young when I first stepped through its doors. The carpet was a bit threadbare by then, the lights slightly dimmed from their glory days, but it still had that smell — aged wood, brass polish, and the faint trace of old cigarette smoke clinging to velvet. A proper theatre. A place for voices and stories. The sort of place where a lad could feel he’d stepped into something grand.

Years later, I’d find myself stood on that same promenade, only now in silence. The theatre gone, the dust still settling. In one hand, a Cuban cigar — slowly drawn, smoke rising like ghosts.

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Theatre and Cigars: Two Rituals of Patience

It’s an odd thing, how a cigar can stir memories. I’ve always thought cigars have something theatrical about them. The ritual of the cut, the slow toast of the foot, that first hesitant draw like the curtain rising. You don’t rush a good cigar, just as you don’t rush a good play. You settle into it. Let it take you somewhere.

Cuban cigars in particular seem to carry the same layered richness as a night at the theatre. They unfold in acts. The opening mild and inviting, the middle deepening in complexity, and the final third often bold, unexpected — not unlike a dramatic twist before the close.

Some smokes — like the H. Upmann Magnum 50 — start with such poise and structure, they’d be right at home as the opening number in a black-tie matinee. Others, like the Montecristo No. 5, are compact and sharp, like a gripping one-act play you can’t shake afterwards.

They also carry history. Not just the centuries of craft in the Vuelta Abajo region of Cuba, but a kind of timelessness. You could be anywhere — 1950s Havana, a West End dressing room, or a Scarborough seafront bench — and the smoke would still taste of story.

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The Futurist: A Place That Belonged to the People

I’ve heard people dismiss The Futurist as “just another crumbling theatre,” but that misses the point entirely. For nearly a hundred years, it was where this town met itself — school plays, summer shows, films, concerts, pantos, stand-up comics. There were locals who never set foot in a big city, but knew the thrill of the overture, the hush before the first line, because they had The Futurist.

I remember seeing Ken Dodd there. My father took me. He’d brought two cigars — one for him, one I wasn’t meant to have. We lit them after, outside, laughing through the smoke. That was the thing with the theatre: it gave you moments you wanted to mark with something slow and savoury. Like a cigar.

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A Different Kind of Smoke Now

When the demolition crews arrived, people protested. Not with banners and bullhorns necessarily, but in that quiet, northern way — letters to the council, poems in the local paper, long chats in the queue at the chippy. It wasn’t just a building going. It was us, in a way. A part of our collective story.

That day, as they tore it down, I found myself lighting a cigar. Not to celebrate, of course. But as a kind of vigil. The smoke curled upward over the bay as if trying to carry something unseen back into the air.

It was a Romeo y Julieta Wide Churchill, I think. A broad, generous cigar — flavourful, but never trying too hard. The sort of smoke that invites you to sit and think. And I did just that. Thought of all the lives that had passed through those doors. All the evenings, the performances, the first dates and final acts.

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Some Things Endure

We’re told we live in a world of short attention spans. That people don’t have time for slow pleasures. But you wouldn’t know it sitting quietly with a cigar. Or listening to an old man talk about the theatre that used to be. There are still places — and people — who hold on to ritual, who understand that some things are meant to take their time.

Even now, when I reach for something contemplative, I often turn to cigars that carry the same depth of character. The Punch Punch, with its mellow spice and easy draw, is like a familiar encore. And the Por Larrañaga Galanes — well, that’s the quiet understudy that steals the show if you give it the time.

The Futurist is gone. But I still walk that stretch of Foreshore Road. Sometimes with a Montecristo, sometimes something milder. Always unhurried. Always thoughtful. And every now and then, if the sea mist hangs just right, I could swear I hear applause on the wind.