I used to visit this cinema on a fairly regular basis specifically for the amazing THX screen back in the days when it was owned by UCI. I think the first film I saw there was Star Trek: Generations and I stopped going once a new cinema much closer to me opened with a THX screen (although that only lasted 6 months).
I went back there a few years ago when I heard they’d converted to all digital projection, in the hope that the former THX screen would still be pretty good. Unfortunately I was in for a bit of a shock.
The auditorium has been totally gutted and filled with low quality, rickety stadium seating, the plush red draped walls are now pretty much just painted breeze blocks, all the subdued lighting has gone as has the pleated screen curtain. The only thing this screen now shares with it’s predecessor is the same geographical location; there is quite literally NOTHING left from its days as one the best (if not the best) cinema screens in the country.
I really can’t understand the logic of it. Odeon (or whoever it was who refitted it) must have spent a reasonable amount of money just to make it a shadow of its former self. It’s like taking a Ferrari to a garage, asking them to spend £20k on it and they give you back Ford Mondeo.
My advice to AndySummers… don’t visit there; what they’ve done to the place will make you cry! Even just typing this now is making me angry!
I used to visit this cinema on a fairly regular basis specifically for the amazing THX screen back in the days when it was owned by UCI. I think the first film I saw there was Star Trek: Generations and I stopped going once a new cinema much closer to me opened with a THX screen (although that only lasted 6 months).
I went back there a few years ago when I heard they’d converted to all digital projection, in the hope that the former THX screen would still be pretty good. Unfortunately I was in for a bit of a shock.
The auditorium has been totally gutted and filled with low quality, rickety stadium seating, the plush red draped walls are now pretty much just painted breeze blocks, all the subdued lighting has gone as has the pleated screen curtain. The only thing this screen now shares with it’s predecessor is the same geographical location; there is quite literally NOTHING left from its days as one the best (if not the best) cinema screens in the country.
I really can’t understand the logic of it. Odeon (or whoever it was who refitted it) must have spent a reasonable amount of money just to make it a shadow of its former self. It’s like taking a Ferrari to a garage, asking them to spend £20k on it and they give you back Ford Mondeo.
My advice to AndySummers… don’t visit there; what they’ve done to the place will make you cry! Even just typing this now is making me angry!