New Gallery Cinema

Interior photos from January 2019 trading as the Burberry Store, with much of the original architecture on show:–

NEW GALLERY

NEW GALLERY

NEW GALLERY

NEW GALLERY

Have a Victor 78 Recording of Reginald Foort playing “In a Persian Market” sometime before 1939. Will try to post.

Seems this theatre is to re-open in the near future according to London’s Evening Standard newspaper. I hope it is true.

http://www.theatrestrust.org.uk/news/show/3208-former-new-gallery-cinema-regent-street-to-be-converted-for-burberry but it had a balcony.

Concerts on the Wurlitzer resumed in December 2010 and it is currently played on the first Saturday of each month at 4pm. However, Habitat have announced that the store will be closing down on March 19th 2011 and thus the building faces an uncertain future.

Two more interior photos of the auditorium taken in February 2010:–

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stagedoor/4389546342/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stagedoor/4388777717/

As a young boy living in Great Titchfield Street, just off Oxford Street, London. The New Gallery was one of my local cinemas. I remember seeing “Treasure Island” there with Robert Newton and “Appointment With Venus”. The main memory of this cinema was the showing of a free colour one hour film of the great health dangers of cigarette smoking. I vividly remember see a human lung full of tar,it was very explicit and horrible. I have never ever smoked to this day. Thank you “New Gallery” Malcolm Epstein, aged 65 2nd December 2006

Hi Ken, many thanks for your reply to my article.
As I am simply rewriting and, where possible, improving on the tales left by my Father, these having been transcribed by a mate of his from tape recordings, I am unfortunately unable to verify that all the content is 100% correct. Taking into consideration how long ago it was, and that at the time he was only nine years old, then the I must accept that there will be errors, but luckily there are experts such as yourself who are able to dot the i’s and cross the t’s for me. It still gives interested people a window, even thougha little dusty, looking into the world as it was then.
Having read the notes on this website regarding the Wurlitzer installed at the New Gallery Cinema, it does appear that my Father and Grandmother would probably have been entertained by that, as opposed to the usual piano, unless of course the Wurlitzer was experiencing some teething troubles. I have sadly no means to check what the management were offering in the way of backround accompaniment at that particular performance. Nevertheless the tales I am working on are quite intrigueing and as my Grandmother was an avid cinemagoer it makes it all the more interesting to read about other cinemas such as The Canterbury and Gatti’s in the Westminster Bridge Road which she visited very regularly whilst living in the Lambeth Walk during the 1920’s.
I shall indeed someday try to pay the New Gallery building a visit and listen to that same Wurlitzer that you describe and generally do a bit of ‘Ghost Hunting’ around Lambeth, though sadly, I shall not be able to ‘enjoy’ the thrill of being covered in sparks and ashes deposited by the passing trains through the skylight of the Canterbury on a hot evening and the fleas at Gatti’s you can keep anyway.

Dear members,
I am currently writing up the memoirs of my father, Frederick McBride, who grew up in Lambeth Walk, London, England. I have just come to the following recollection of his, when he once visited ‘The New Gallery Cinema’ in London’s Regent’s Street. This particular episode happened, as far as I can work it out, in 1929 when he was nine years old.
I sincerely hope that you enjoy this account.

…“We sat through a silent film which had the usual piano accompaniment. After a short interval, the curtains parted to reveal a projected picture of the writer, George Bernard Shaw, standing at the end of a path in his garden at Ayot St. Lauwrence in Hertfordshire, England. There was no piano now, no music: the cinema was so quiet that we could hear the whirring of the projector above us. He slowly walked forward. When his head a shoulders were filling the screen, he stopped, and clear as a bell, in his stenorian Irish Brogue, said, "Good evening, how do you do? I won’t keep you long, but there is something I should like to say to you…"
We were dumbfounded. We were witnessing a miracle. The whole thing lasted for no longer than five minutes. Exactly what he said I sadly cannot remember; but during thoose few moments, a new world had opened before us…Those mute images had been given a voice. It was not until some time later that we heard of a film entitled, ‘The Jazz Siger’, staring of course Al Jolson.”

This cinema has been all but wrecked in the conversion to retail space. Although – in theory – the new works are removable, in practice it is well nigh impossible to return a valuable retail space to arts use, and removing the extensive new build inside the auditorium – on a levelled floor – would be prohibitively expensive.

Two recent pictures here. The first shows about as much as you can see of the proscenium arch (now blocked in):–

View link

and the second is a view from the former balcony area:–

View link

The building is currently surrounded by boarding and the sound of drills and excavators suggests that some major work is currently happening, the 1980’s lobby suspended ceiling has been pulled down revealing the original ornate plaster ceiling that appears in very good condition apart from the front section which has been removed. the regentstreetonline website says that studies have been done into bringing the cinema into reuse as soon as possible as part of the redevelopment of heddon st, quite what this use would be is dubious as there would be little point in operating it as a cinema, its location is not right (hence its short operational life span)
More ominously there are currently four entire blocks of regent st that have been demolished retaining only the facades…

Here’s some more information about the history of the New Gallery Cinema from regentstreetonline.com – “No 123 Regent Street is the entrance to the new Gallery Cinema, opened in 1913, having been re-modelled out of the previous restaurant by William Woodward. It had 800 seats and the largest cinema orchestra in London. The cinema was extensively reconstructed and refurbished in 1924 by Nicholas and Dixon-Spain; decorated in a Grecian style, it had a 265 feet long frieze by Gertrude Halsey. In 1926 a Wurlizer Model F organ was installed, the first in a West End cinema.” I believe it featured premieres of films by Charlie Chaplin and later Jessie Matthews. PeterK

The Wurlitzer organ was/is installed in two chambers on the right-hand side of the proscenium. It was not divided on both sides