Vue Piccadilly
19 Lower Regent Street,
London,
SW1Y 4LR
19 Lower Regent Street,
London,
SW1Y 4LR
10 people
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Showing 26 - 32 of 32 comments
The ground floor has been open as a Tesco supermarket for a couple of months now, but the five screen Apollo West End opened last Thursday, claiming to be “the West End’s Most Luxurious Cinema”. The stairs from the street lead downwards so I assume it is in the basement, but I have not been able to visit yet.
I loved the Plaza. I loved the movies they used to show there. I still remember fondly seeing flicks from the 70s such as SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT, MIDWAY, AIRPORT ‘77 all the way up to the 90s with STAR TREK GENERATIONS. I loved The Plaza. It’s disheartening to know that they are turning the lower parts into a supermarket. Too many London theatres are dying now…Odeon Haymarker, Plaza, etc, the bastardized Odeon Marble Arch etc. It’s sad really.
I wasn’t impressed with the renderings on the Apollo website…What Picadilly doesn’t need is another set of smallish rooms with the same programming as everyone else. Saw some good films in these theatres in the 70’s-90’s…Quadrophenia in its original run…The Crying Game, Housesitter, Citizen Kane in a 2 week reissue, White Men Can’t Jump, American Beauty, Monty Python the Meaning of Life, Green Card…
the exterior has been beautifully cleaned and the plaza name is back up, but its crowning glory will be when the dome is revealled from under its current scaffolding, ive been up on the roof and its clad in an amazing blue and gold mosaic wave pattern and the little cuppola should be restored with its paramount logo (mountain with crown of stars)
its such a huge shame its not got its original interior, there were a few fragments of the original plasterwork from the rear of the circle when it closed, i assume these have been removed for safe keeping
Yeah – thanks Woody found the images on the Apollo website a few days after posting my comment above. You know I’d love to beleive that the Apollo may indeed offer London filmgoers something special but the images remind me uncomfortably of the long-gone and unmissed (?) horrible five screen Cannon on Oxford Street – with a few more reflective surfaces! We’ll see! I live in hope!
check out the apollo website, they have some artist impressions of the new lobby areas, it remains to be seen how luxurious they really will be for a cramped basement development
Most of the scaffolding has now come down, and the tesco metro supermarket looks ready to open on the ground floor
Does anyone know any more about the new cinema development on this site? I understand it is to be operated by the Apollo Cinema Chain. Will they be offering us the usual non-descript modern cinema auditoria or something more stylish?