Fulham Road Picturehouse
Fulham Road and Drayton Gardens,
London,
SW10 6SD
Fulham Road and Drayton Gardens,
London,
SW10 6SD
4 people
favorited this theater
Additional Info
Previously operated by: Associated British Cinemas Ltd., Cannon Cinemas, Cineworld, MGM Theatres, Picturehouse Cinemas UK, UGC, Virgin Cinemas, Wyanbee Cinemas
Architects: John Stanley Beard, A. Douglas Clare
Firms: Beard & Clare, Earle Architects
Styles: Italian Renaissance
Previous Names: Forum Theatre, ABC Fulham Road, Cannon, MGM, Virgin, UGC, Cineworld Cinema - Fulham Road
Nearby Theaters
The Forum Theatre opened on 18th December 1930 with Lupez Velez in “The Storm” and Slim Summerville in “Parly Vous” plus a variety stage show “Forum Festivitas” starring Clapham & Dwyer with a 24 piece orchestra. The original seating capacity was 2,200 in stalls and circle. The style of decoration was Classical, with Romanesque touches and there was a large 80 feet wide coffered dome in the auditorium ceiling. The side-walls were decorated with pastoral Italian scenes.
The stage was 30 feet deep and the proscenium was 45 feet wide. There were eight dressing rooms and the theatre was equipped with a Compton 3Manual/8Rank organ. The projection box was located in the rear of the orchestra stalls rather than the usual position at the rear of the circle. It was equipped with a Western Electric(WE) sound system. The Forum Theatre had a circular shaped tea-room/café located above the main entrance.
It was the first of three theatres to be designed for Herbert A. Yapp’s Wyanbee Theatres, a small circuit located in the north of London. The other two Forum Theatres at Kentish Town and Ealing were also designed by architect J. Stanley Beard for the circuit in 1934. The circuit was sold to Associated British Cinemas (ABC) on 8th April 1935. This cinema was re-named ABC in 1961 and during the 1960’s the Compton organ was removed. In June 1974 it was closed for conversion into a three-screen cinema (one in the circle, two in the stalls) and in early-1975 a fourth screen was added in part of the fly tower. The remainder of the fly tower and dressing rooms were converted into a squash court. In 1977 the circle screen was divided into two screens. In recent years, a sixth screen opened above the former squash court screen.
It has gone through several changes in ownership since the demise of ABC Cinemas, including Cineworld. This cinema’s features include a beautiful exterior and lobby, along with a very courteous staff. Although all the trappings of the original auditorium have been scrapped, you could still some of the balcony moulding in auditoriums four and five and in the main entrance foyer.
Seating capacities are for 348, 327 in the former circle and 173 in the upper area of the squash court, and 219, 204 in the former stalls and 155 in the lower area of the squash court.
On June 10, 2019, it was announced that the Cineworld Cinema - Fulham Road is to be transferred over to Picturehouse Cinemas (owned by Cineworld) and would undergo a renovation to the plans of architectural firm Earle Architects following its closure on 6th October 2019. All original decorative features have been removed from the building, apart from the entrance foyer and a few original internal doors remain. It was re-named Picturehouse Fulham Road when it re-opened on 8th December 2019. The cinema boasted two restaurants.
It was announced in May 2024 that the cinema had been sold to developers and in June 2024 it was announced the Fulham Road Picturehouse would close on July 12, 2024 to be demolished for a block of flats.
Contributed by
Jack Coursey, Ken Roe
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Recent comments (view all 49 comments)
The Forum is in Kensington, more than a mile from Fulham.The opposite side of the road is in Chelsea. Fulham road starts just north of Putney bridge, running through fulham until Stamford bridge, then along the Kensington, Chelsea border until it meets Brompton road near south Kensington underground station.
Chelsea football ground is on the Kensington Fulham border and actually in Fulham, about 50 yards from Chelsea. Regarding the cinema, the off-licence on the Fulham road elevation was the projection rooms for the original cinema. It was rear stalls and below the circle. It was one of the first cinemas equipped for Cinemascope with the 4 track magnetic sound. Due to the reluctance of the chains to include the new sound systems, the optical track was put back, reducing the ratio from 1:2.55 to 1:2.35. One problem was that magnetic Cinemascope had a true optical center, not offset by the optical soundtrack, thus causing problems for changing from one to the other and for the adverts, newsreel and trailers. Later magnetic prints solved the problem by adding the optical soundtrack and offsetting the optical center to match standard 35mm layout. At the start of 70mm, projectors and sound systems could play 35mm stereo, but distributors did not see the additional costs of recording and striping the prints justified for a few theaters.
I contacted Picturehouse about the apparent closure - they told me they weren’t aware of such an event, and that the building can’t be demolished anyway because it’s listed
Unfortunately it looks like the closure is true as it’s now been announced by email and social media, the last day is 11th July. This was my workplace from 2017 to 2019 (just before the Picturehouse refurb) and it really was very busy back then particularly during Oscar season, the refurb made it look stunning but cinema attendances have dropped so much in recent years it all came a bit too late. Demolition would be an incredibly sad end to this place.
The Fulham Road Picturehouse is NOT a Listed building.
To give you an idea of how busy this cinema used to be in the recent past, on January 20th 2018 this cinema had a massive 2,689 admissions in a day, a probable record from at least 2012 onwards until closure. This was a combination of being a Saturday in January with the peak of Oscar-nominated films being released, and the Cineworld in Leicester Square being closed for refurbishment that month so many of their regular customers went to Fulham instead. January was by far the biggest month for the cinema but they also had huge admissions in the autumn for James Bond films, and before the refurb Avengers: Endgame also did significant numbers there on its opening weekend in April 2019.
As an extreme contrast I also worked a run of very quiet days during the hot summer of 2018 and the football world cup, and on the day of England’s semi final match with Croatia they had just 89 admissions - the biggest audience being 9 people for a 2:30pm matinee of Ocean’s Eight!
In a lovely touch, the 1988 film Cinema Paradiso will be playing here on the final night.
A real shame to lose this…one of my locals when I lived in the neighborhood 1990-2000…Saw Big Lebowski…O Brother Where Art Thou…Buena Vista Social Club…Sixth Sense…House of Sand & Fog…State & Main…Other People’s Money…JFK…Godfather III…White Palace…Bad Lieutenant New Orleans…A Quiet Place and probably some others here
Hugh Grant suggests he might get involved to preserve the historic theatre. More here: https://www.aol.co.uk/news/hugh-grant-miserable-blames-scrolling-191330702.html
According to a post on Reddit the cinema was occupied by squatters a day after closure, who broke a window and barricaded the doors from inside.
First ad found. (none on the 12th.).
Forum theatre first ad found 19 Dec 1930, Fri Fulham and Hammersmith Chronicle (Hammersmith, London, England) Newspapers.com