The cinema is The Odyssey and it stands on the site of a picture house built in 1908. This building was designed by Arthur Melbourne-Cooper and it was called the Alpha Picture Palace. It was one of the first buildings recognizable as a cinema (or ‘movie theater’). The cinema was destroyed by fire in 1927.
A few years later a new cinema opened on the same spot along London Road. This, a 1930s Art Deco inspired building, was called the Capitol Cinema. Later on it was renamed The Poly, and later rebranded as The Regent. In 1945 the independent cinema was purchased by Odeon, and it continued as part of the Odeon chain until 1995, when, coinciding with a downturn in cinema visits and facing competition from a nearby multiplex, it closed.
Darren Pickard (@darrenpickard) “Love watching films at the #odyssey in St Albans. Like watching a massive tv in your fav armchair while eating sweets and drinking Peroni!”
Gary Painter (@Withnail74) “Just been to The Odyssey in St Albans – stunning restored 1930s cinema. Glasgow needs an Odyssey!”
The building then stood empty, crumbling a little at the edges, for nearly twenty years. With the building facing demolition, a campaign was launched to save the building and slowly £1 million ($1.3 million) was raised to save it.
Following this the cinema was gradually restored to its former magnificence. The aim was to return to the glitz and the glamour typified by the 1930s era. This has certainly worked and visiting the cinema today is like stepping back in time.
The additional spending for renovations came to £1.5 million ($2 million). The project took three years to complete. The campaign to save the cinema was led by James Hannaway, who saved a similar cinema in the English town of Berkhampstead.
The attention to detail is mind boggling, but not all is old-fashioned. The cinema has a state of the art projection and digital sound.
The cinema has standard seating upstairs. Downstairs there are many chairs arranged around tables. At the back is a bar selling a range of snacks, soft drinks and alcoholic beverages.
The name of the new cinema — The Odyssey — is a homage to the work of Stanley Kubrick, who lived nearby (that is the name is derived from Kubrick’s masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey). The arts basis is captured in the program. The cinema screens a mix of recent releases, arts movies and classics from yesteryear.
This eclectic mix helps the cinema to thrive and to compete against the chain cinemas. The repertoire at The Odyssey is diverse, exciting and busy.
