{"id":150962,"date":"2025-06-02T02:17:17","date_gmt":"2025-06-02T02:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/150962\/"},"modified":"2025-06-02T02:17:17","modified_gmt":"2025-06-02T02:17:17","slug":"odeon-in-camden-town-is-set-to-close","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/150962\/","title":{"rendered":"Odeon in Camden Town is set to close"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Odeon in Parkway, Camden Town<\/strong><\/p>\n

NEARLY 100 years of film history is to come to an end with the closure of Odeon in Camden Town, the New Journal can reveal.<\/p>\n

The picture house in Parkway, which first opened in 1937, is set to be turned into a new swathe of student housing.<\/p>\n

The plans for the site are being drawn up by the landowners, named Camden Town Xchange and headed up by long-standing Camden Town property developer Chris Shaw.<\/p>\n

It also emerged this week that the immersive entertainment group Secret Cinema has abandoned plans to set up a new venue despite \u00adwinning planning permission last year to \u00adconvert the adjacent bingo hall \u2013 also included in the redevelopment scheme.<\/p>\n

It is famed for inviting guests to step into classic films and stories by dressing up and mingling with actors as they present the show.<\/p>\n

Mecca Bingo called its final numbers and closed last November.<\/p>\n

Architects are now working on a project that will see the cinema and bingo hall replaced by 250 homes for students and a further 40 affordable homes.<\/p>\n

A new leisure offering \u00ad\u2013 yet to be decided \u2013 will also be included, and it could include a cinema or immersive experience.<\/p>\n

It could even lead to the creation of a new music venue.<\/p>\n

No plans have been formalised yet, however, and the team behind\u00a0the development has said it is open to ideas.<\/p>\n

An Odeon cinema spokesman has confirmed to the New Journal the Parkway screens will fall silent in the new year.<\/p>\n

It said they had seven other Odeons within a 30-minute journey from Parkway, adding: \u201cFollowing talks with our landlord, we have come to a mutual agreement to close our Camden cinema next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cSupporting our local cinema team is our number one priority and we will be looking to secure jobs for as many of them as possible at our other cinema locations.\u201d<\/p>\n

It began life as the Gaumont and comedian Will Hay and the actor Lilli Palmer brought some glitz to official opening on January 25, 1937.<\/p>\n

Falling audiences in the 1960s saw part of the site handed over to a bingo hall and then in the 1980s, cinema operator Peter Walker took it on.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The old bingo hall in Arlington Road<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1993, a plan to close the cinema attracted anger and it eventually reopened as a multi-screen venue for Odeon in 1997.<\/p>\n

Designed by architects W E and Sydney Trent and Daniel McKay, it took more than a year to build and gave work to 2,000 St Pancras workers.<\/p>\n

It was seen as a state-of-the-art offering, with the stage alone costing \u00a310,000 and it included a Compton Organ, built by John Compton of Willesden.<\/p>\n

Opened by the Mayor of St Pancras F W Fincham, it\u2019s first film was Showboat starring Paul Robeson \u2013 backed by a Mickey Mouse short and the James Dunn movie The Two Fisted Gentleman.<\/p>\n

A children\u2019s cinema club operated on Saturday mornings costing 3p and a live penguin was brought along from London Zoo to add to the fun.<\/p>\n

It became a mascot of the club and attended regularly, with children invited to suggest names for the film-watching water bird.<\/p>\n

In the 1940s and 1950s concerts were also featured at the cinema and stars included Bob Hope and the orchestra leader Mantovani.<\/p>\n

At the end of the 1960s, the auditorium was deemed just too big for cinema audiences and part of the stalls area was converted into a Mecca bingo, with its now familiar entrance in Arlington Road.<\/p>\n

It missed out on Grade-II listing in the 1990s due to extensive changes made in the 1960s.<\/p>\n

It survived as The Gate cinema for two years before being the Parkway cinema under the management of Mr Walker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Odeon in Parkway, Camden Town NEARLY 100 years of film history is to come to an end…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,64427,18393,393,4884,257,2516,18394,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-150962","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-camden-town","10":"tag-dan-carrier","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-london","14":"tag-property","15":"tag-the-camden-new-journal","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114611371732725242","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}