Beckenham Odeon to close in November as campaigners fight to keep it a cinema

Beckenham’s Odeon will stop showing films at the end of November. A group of residents is now campaigning to keep the Grade II-listed building on the high street as a cinema.

The operator said it had entered “a voluntary commercial agreement with its landlord” and would leave. That landlord is Citygate Church. The church plans to use the building for worship and to make room for the community, and it would restore some of the original Art Deco features as part of the work.

Save Our Screen campaign for the Beckenham cinema

Save Our Screen wants films to carry on. For some locals, losing the cinema would leave the area poorer. Nicola Ouzman, one of the campaigners, said people had sent in a flood of memories of the venue. Her own family has one. Her grandparents went there on their first date, and her grandfather’s bike was stolen afterwards.

For Carina, the cinema is somewhere her two autistic children feel safe. They visit at least once a month, and she said the area had no other community space like it. Mo Martin has been a regular for decades. He called the closure “really sad”.

Not everyone shares that view. One local said they had been a frequent visitor in childhood but had hardly gone inside in the last ten years. They described the cinema as very run down and said they now use better equipped screens elsewhere.

Amanda Lawton, also with the campaign, admitted the building was looking tired. With the right motivation, she said, “we can create something really special here”.

What survives inside the 1930 Regal Cinema

The building opened in 1930 as the Regal Cinema, the work of the noted cinema architect Robert Cromie. Its foyer keeps the original Art Deco doors, wave-patterned plasterwork and staircases. The auditorium still has its complete proscenium arch. The main entrance has survived too. So have the stairs that once led up to a first-floor restaurant, along with that restaurant’s original dumb waiter.

The local MP, Liam Conlon, who represents Beckenham and Penge for Labour, wants the building kept as a cultural venue. He pointed to Crystal Palace and Walthamstow, where communities rallied after their cinemas closed. Citygate Church is inviting residents to give their views on the building’s future at a public consultation on Saturday.