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Opened as the Saville Theatre on 8th October 1931.

The opening production was “For the Love of Mike” - a play with tunes which ran until June 1932. The theatre was designed in an Art Deco style by the architectural firm T.P. Bennett & Son, with Bertie Crewe as consulting architect. Seating was provided for 1,185; 597 in the orchestra stalls (which were below street level) and a single balcony (the front of which was at street level). The front of the balcony known as the dress circle seated 261 and the rear section known as the upper circle seated 319. There was a box on each side of the proscenium, each one seating four persons. The proscenium was 31 feet wide, the stage 30 feet deep and there were 16 single dressing rooms and one chorus room which accommodated 50 artistes, plus an orchestra room which could hold 30 people. The Saville Theatre was the last of the ‘live’ theatres to be built on Shaftesbury Avenue (London’s ‘West End’ theatre street)

Taken over by Odeon Cinemas Group in 2000,

it was re-named Odeon Shaftesbury Avenue and after a short time it became the Odeon Covent Garden (although it is only ‘near’ to Covent Garden and not located ‘in’ it). In 2001 it was sub-divided into a four-screen cinema and now plays off-beat independent films rather than the big blockbusters. Current seating capacities in the screens are; 148, 269, 167 and 156. - Notes by Ian Grundy, Ross Melnick, Ken Roe

Contributed by Greg Lynch -