THIS room once rang out to the sounds of Handel and Italian Opera performed for royalty.

But for one long weekend only, The Royal Pavilion’s sumptuous music room will be converted into a cinema for up to 120 lucky film lovers.

The room will become the country’s most richly-decorated cinema as it screens six classic films from today until Sunday.

Cinephiles lucky enough to get a ticket will have the chance to watch Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo tonight, weepy classic Dr Zhivago on Friday and Daniel Day-Lewis in My Beautiful Laundrette on Saturday.

Also on Saturday, the music room will be screening the Oscar-nominated adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando while Sunday sees two more classic romances in Letter from an Unknown Woman and Brief Encounter.

The films are featured as part of the 13th annual Cinecity Film Festival which ends its 17 day run in Brighton on Sunday and the nationwide Love season run by the British Film Institute.

The room was created to sate the Prince Regent’s passion for music with his own band entertaining guests with live performances.

The Italian composer Rossini performed beneath the room’s nine lotus-shaped chandeliers in 1823.

The room, one of the highlights of a tour round the Pavilion, has suffered its fair share of misfortune in the past including a severe fire in 1975.

A full restoration was completed including a painstaking reproduction of the original hand-knotted and fitted Axminster carpet - only for disaster to strike again in October 1987 when a storm dislodged a heavy stone ball which came crashing through the newly restored ceiling onto the carpet.

Over recent years the room has hosted royal banquets, Council of Europe delegates, an exhibition of Regency dresses and sports awards.

Staff will have to be quick on their toes preparing the room for tonight's opening with the music room hosting the wedding of another happy couple this afternoon.