421 posts
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Post by Distant Dreamer... on May 3, 2024 16:30:21 GMT
I’m rather annoyed about this. I naively thought it would be trying to use the exciting space, maybe even what is already there. This just seems like a hotel with a basement theatre. It’s a pathetic and insensitive money grab, leave it as a cinema.
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7,251 posts
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Post by Jon on May 3, 2024 16:33:37 GMT
It's much like a lot of development where they add the theatre because they have to get planning permission.
I suspect a hotel and theatre is more financially lucrative than a cinema that has seen better days.
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4,819 posts
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Post by Mark on Aug 24, 2024 10:23:55 GMT
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Post by SilverFox on Aug 24, 2024 12:29:20 GMT
As I understand it, Odeon leased, rather than owned, the Covent Garden venue and have had the lease terminated - hence the lack of investment. It is still classed as a 'theatre' despite the previous decades of cinema use, and apparently still has much of the Saville original remaining, although the foyers and auditorium are believed to be largely lost. NEVER believe a developer when they state "nothing remains" - the Kensington Odeon was a prime example of that lie (google the images), and before that the Dominion and Shaftesbury demolition pronouncements make interesting reading. The theatre is listed grade 2, principally because of the Gilbert Bayes sculptures on the exterior, and the developer will probably get away with demolishing the interior on condition of retaining and restoring the exterior (albeit vastly extended upwards). For those interested in obscure architectural facts, the two cinemas created for ABC by William Ryder Associates in 1970 are still very much in evidence, each split into two screens.
The danger lurks in the detail as to who pays for the replacement theatre. The Westminster Theatre was demolished in 2002, following a massive fire just after a campaign to save the venue got underway (?!?), the remains were quickly demolished. The new building was planned, but the theatre space (initially touted as a home for Talawa), remained a problem with attempts made to reclassify the space as something other than theatre (which failed), and eventually the apartments opened in 2008/9, with the theatre space unused as the fitting out costs were too high for the small size of the space. It was several years after that the St James Theatre was completed (2012) and opened with less than half the seats of the former Westminster. It was renamed the Other Palace after Lloyd-Webber took it over in 2016 (he sold it in 2021). More recently, @sohoplace seems to have opened without too many hitches, replacing the Astoria Theatre.
Two fairly central large cinemas have disappeared recently, the Odeon Marble Arch, and the Chelsea Cinema on the King's Road. The former had a multiplex cinema constructed in the basement which has been repurposed as a gallery, the latter has had 3 auditoria constructed in the basement (behind the retained facade of the original Gaumont Palace), but it is unlikely that Curzon will take them as planned. No other operator is known to be interested, they have not been fitted-out.
I would take the involvement of Cirque loosely until an opening date is announced .....
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