The first film shown at this cinema was ‘Justin and the Knights of Valour’ at 2:20pm, 24th October 2013. As the cinema launched with little ceremony it played to an audience of just two people!
Business was slow at first due to lack of customer awareness and the nearby established Cineworld at Staples Corner. Popularity after the initial few weeks increased greatly, particularly amongst Bollywood and Tamil film fans as a significant amount of Indian films are shown here, leading to Staples Corner’s eventual closure in 2016. A large window overlooking Wembley was added to the foyer wall in January 2015, significantly increasing natural light to the space.
Projection has been fully digital from the beginning along with D-Box seating in Screen 7.
Still (half) standing as of August 2016, still with the movie posters from the month of the fire (Kung Fu Panda 3 and Eddie the Eagle) visible in the foyer.
This cinema on several accounts has seriously suffered since the opening of Cineworld Wembley in October 2013, with dated facilities and extreme absence of customers – on my last few visits there in 2014-15 I’ve mostly had the entire screen to myself. On one occasion the film wasn’t started at all, another time it was randomly moved to another screen with no notification from staff, meaning the audience sat in a silent screen for several minutes only for another customer to inform them the film had actually started several minutes earlier in another screen.
Can’t see it lasting long although it does have free parking, and if quiet cinemas are your thing it’s worth checking out.
There’s a phone box in Whitechapel which as of December 2014 continues to advertise the “new” UGC cinema, fourteen years after open and nine years after becoming a Cineworld. It even proudly displays the UGC Megapass, which eventually evolved into the Cineworld Unlimited card.
As perhaps imagined due to the huge amount of former owners, the inside styling is a mishmash of 1990s and 2000s design from its various former incarnations.
The top floor (screens 6 to 9) in particular appears to have been completely untouched since around the turn of the millennium, to the point where as of February 2015 it continues to advertise the long, long closed Virgin Megastore on the ground floor – a brand defunct since 2007!
This cinema was the last place I saw a 35mm screening to date, ‘One Day’ in August 2011 in one of the smaller screens. It was the last Odeon in the country to be fully converted to digital in November that year.
Apparently this was the last cartoon cinema left in the UK when it closed with ‘The Hound that Thought He was a Raccoon’ on August 27th, 1981. I’d been told by my father about them but I never knew how long they lasted.
Although accessing a screen often involved going up a frustratingly large number of escalators, it’s a still a shame it closed. It had formed a good partnership with the Cineworld Haymarket down the road in that Shaftesbury Avenue would normally show the big, populist blockbusters and Haymarket the smaller art-house films, although sometimes one would be in the other – the last film I saw here was ‘The Congress’ a few weeks before it closed. The disinterest of some of the staff was apparent who probably already knew they were losing their jobs, but I did like the random appearance of a Dalek by one of the escalators, constructed by a staff member for the 2013 50th anniversary episode and left there ever since. Wonder where that is now.
Poor Haymarket now has a challenge in what films it can fit into its three screens. The Fulham Road/Chelsea cinemas have a similar sharing of content between them (situated minutes walk away from each other) but the distribution seems a bit more random there, both big and smaller releases shared between both cinemas.
And still open as of March 2014, as mentioned friendly staff but with an interior seemingly unaltered for at least about 20 years. A bit like stepping back in time.
Can anyone confirm if Disney’s ‘101 Dalmatians’ was shown here around VE Day in 1995? I have a childhood memory of going to an Odeon which was bombed during the war and a short film being played about the rebuilding, then 101 Dalmatians afterwards. The description of both this and the previous cinema on the site seems to match it, if so I was lucky enough to see this cinema before the dividing.
The first film shown at this cinema was ‘Justin and the Knights of Valour’ at 2:20pm, 24th October 2013. As the cinema launched with little ceremony it played to an audience of just two people!
Business was slow at first due to lack of customer awareness and the nearby established Cineworld at Staples Corner. Popularity after the initial few weeks increased greatly, particularly amongst Bollywood and Tamil film fans as a significant amount of Indian films are shown here, leading to Staples Corner’s eventual closure in 2016. A large window overlooking Wembley was added to the foyer wall in January 2015, significantly increasing natural light to the space.
Projection has been fully digital from the beginning along with D-Box seating in Screen 7.
4DX seats were added on 9th December 2016, London’s first cinema to receive them.
Currently undergoing a major refurbishment, still ongoing as of February 2017 but looking brilliantly modern already!
Zavvi closed in early 2009 at this location.
All three movies were January 1998 release dates in the UK, so probably Jan/Feb that year.
Probably February 1999 (Bulworth 22/01/99, YFAN 12/02/99 and TGAAG 29/01/99).
This cinema closed in about 1990.
This cinema closed in June 2014, and as of November 2016 remains empty and derelict.
Alien Resurrection was released 28/11/1997, so this is from very late that year or very early the next.
This is from early 1999 judging by the films, ‘Little Voice’ released 8/1/99 and ‘Stepmom’ 29/1/99.
Still (half) standing as of August 2016, still with the movie posters from the month of the fire (Kung Fu Panda 3 and Eddie the Eagle) visible in the foyer.
Closing on 14th August 2016.
This cinema on several accounts has seriously suffered since the opening of Cineworld Wembley in October 2013, with dated facilities and extreme absence of customers – on my last few visits there in 2014-15 I’ve mostly had the entire screen to myself. On one occasion the film wasn’t started at all, another time it was randomly moved to another screen with no notification from staff, meaning the audience sat in a silent screen for several minutes only for another customer to inform them the film had actually started several minutes earlier in another screen.
Can’t see it lasting long although it does have free parking, and if quiet cinemas are your thing it’s worth checking out.
The website proudly states “All Tickets, Everyday all day £3.50” which is unbelieveably cheap for 2015.
£3.95 tickets for most films on a Tuesday makes this easily one of the least expensive cinemas in the London area as of April 2015.
There’s a phone box in Whitechapel which as of December 2014 continues to advertise the “new” UGC cinema, fourteen years after open and nine years after becoming a Cineworld. It even proudly displays the UGC Megapass, which eventually evolved into the Cineworld Unlimited card.
As perhaps imagined due to the huge amount of former owners, the inside styling is a mishmash of 1990s and 2000s design from its various former incarnations.
The top floor (screens 6 to 9) in particular appears to have been completely untouched since around the turn of the millennium, to the point where as of February 2015 it continues to advertise the long, long closed Virgin Megastore on the ground floor – a brand defunct since 2007!
The black area with the Cineworld logo on the left was converted into a large window looking into the foyer in January 2015.
This cinema was the last place I saw a 35mm screening to date, ‘One Day’ in August 2011 in one of the smaller screens. It was the last Odeon in the country to be fully converted to digital in November that year.
Still as of 2014 displaying obsolete ABC logos around the entrance, many years after said cinema chain went defunct!
Apparently this was the last cartoon cinema left in the UK when it closed with ‘The Hound that Thought He was a Raccoon’ on August 27th, 1981. I’d been told by my father about them but I never knew how long they lasted.
Although accessing a screen often involved going up a frustratingly large number of escalators, it’s a still a shame it closed. It had formed a good partnership with the Cineworld Haymarket down the road in that Shaftesbury Avenue would normally show the big, populist blockbusters and Haymarket the smaller art-house films, although sometimes one would be in the other – the last film I saw here was ‘The Congress’ a few weeks before it closed. The disinterest of some of the staff was apparent who probably already knew they were losing their jobs, but I did like the random appearance of a Dalek by one of the escalators, constructed by a staff member for the 2013 50th anniversary episode and left there ever since. Wonder where that is now.
Poor Haymarket now has a challenge in what films it can fit into its three screens. The Fulham Road/Chelsea cinemas have a similar sharing of content between them (situated minutes walk away from each other) but the distribution seems a bit more random there, both big and smaller releases shared between both cinemas.
And still open as of March 2014, as mentioned friendly staff but with an interior seemingly unaltered for at least about 20 years. A bit like stepping back in time.
Interesting to hear – when I went just last month it was still very much stuck in the Virgin/UGC days of the late 1990s.
Still open as of February 2014 and seemingly no sign of closure.
Can anyone confirm if Disney’s ‘101 Dalmatians’ was shown here around VE Day in 1995? I have a childhood memory of going to an Odeon which was bombed during the war and a short film being played about the rebuilding, then 101 Dalmatians afterwards. The description of both this and the previous cinema on the site seems to match it, if so I was lucky enough to see this cinema before the dividing.