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The Leicester Square Theatre, 40 Leicester Square, Westminster

Later The Olympic Theatre / Odeon West End Cinema

Other Leicester Square Theatres and Cinemas

Above Left - The Leicester Square Theatre in 1939 - From a postcard - And right - The Odeon West End in July 2009, formerly known as the Leicester Square Theatre.

The Odeon West End, situated at the south west corner of Leicester Square, was built in 1930 and originally opened as the Leicester Square Theatre. This should not be confused with the current Leicester Square Theatre at 6 Leicester Place which was previously known as the Venue.

The original Leicester Square Theatre was designed by Andrew Mather and built by Gee. Walker and Slater LTD. for Walter Gibbons and Jack Buchanan. The Theatre was intended to be a home for live performances and light musical comedy but a mix up with land purchase meant that part of the site intended for the new Theatre could not be secured and so the stage ended up being much smaller than originally planned. This would soon prove to be the Theatre's undoing and the project would end up bankrupting Walter Gibbons.

Right - The auditorium of the Leicester Square Theatre in January 1968 shortly before its reconstruction and removal of the organ and balcony later that year - Photo by John D. Sharp from the journal of the Cinema Organ Society, June 1970 - Click for many images of the remaining fragments of the auditorium in July 2009.

The building opened instead as a home for both live shows and Cinema use and the opening production, on the 19th of December 1930, was a showing of the Warner Bros two-tone Technicolor film 'Viennese Nights' and a live dance show on stage.

The Theatre was equipped with a small stage and a working fly tower, dressing rooms, orchestra pit, a Wurlitzer 3Manual / 10Rank Theatre organ, and a flat above the Theatre for Jack Buchanan who lived there until the building suffered some bomb damage during the war. The auditorium originally consisted of Stalls, Circle, and balcony and could accommodate 1,760 people in some comfort.

RKO bought the building soon after and they reopened the Theatre in June 1931. The following month, Gracie Fields appeared at the Theatre for a week, twice nightly, along with a film which was a prelude to her first talky 'Sally in our Alley' which opened at the Theatre on the 21st of August. This formed part of 'Fifty Fifty' which was a combined stage and screen presentation featuring Jack Hulbert's song and dance show 'The R.K.O. Loud Speakers,' and of course the Gracie Field's film 'Sally in our Alley.'

When the Theatre was taken over by County Cinemas the following year it was renamed the Olympic and opened on the 21st of March with a newly installed revolving stage and a reconstructed interior by Edward Carrick but this didn't prove any more successful for the building and by July Jack Buchanan had taken back control of the Theatre and reopened it under the management of Gordon Courtney as the Leicester Square Theatre again in August 1932. Courtney introduced live variety shows called the 'Non Stop Revels' and dropped the cinema presentations altogether.

These shows were back to back non stop performances which would go on from 2pm until midnight every day. During this period the main entrance to the Theatre was redesigned by Alister MacDonald and it seems that the management were trying everything to make the Theatre a success, but although 'Non Stop Revels' continued for almost a year, it was not to last.

Left - A Programme for Gordon Courtney's review 'Non-Stop Revels' at the Leicester Square Theatre in 1932.

The following year, after 'Non Stop Revels' finished and the Theatre was closed again the building was taken over by United Artists who reopened it on the 27th of September 1933 as a full time Cinema. Ironically the first film to be shown was one produced by Jack Buchanan himself, and called 'That's a Good Girl'.

Above - A Programme for Gordon Courtney's review 'Non-Stop Revels' at the Leicester Square Theatre in 1932.

As a Cinema the building had better fortunes and after it opened as such in 1933 it would never again be home to live productions. United Artists ran the building as their first run house in London until 1937, after which it was taken over by General Film Distributors in 1938 and would later become part of the Rank Organisation.

The building suffered some bomb damage during the war and was closed for nearly a year between 1940 and 1941, but after the war reopening the building as a live theatre again was strongly mooted but sadly in the end nothing became of it and the building remained a cinema.

Right - The Odeon West End, formerly the Leicester Square Theatre, in September 2008 - Photo ML.

In July 1946 Oscar Deutsch's Odeon Theatres Ltd. took control of the building and ran it until 1950 when it was closed for remedial work to the bomb damaged parts of the building, and there were more repairs to the building in 1955.

The Theatre then continued as a Cinema until 1968 when it was closed after the last showing of 'Carry On Doctor' so that major reconstruction work could be carried out.

At this time the Theatre Organ and the balcony were removed and the interior was reconstructed by the architects Arnold Dick Associates with interior designs by Cassidy, Farrington and Dennys. For images of the remaining fragments of the original auditorium, now hidden beneath a false ceiling click here. The Theatre reopened with a slightly lower capacity of 1,402 on the 12th of December 1968 with the film 'Shalako.'

Renamed Odeon west End in July 1988 the Theatre would once again close down for major reconstruction a few years later when in 1991 the Theatre was twinned by creating one screen in the original circle, now floored down to the proscenium, and another larger screen in the former stalls and occupying part of the original stage.

Above - The Odeon West End's number two screen projection box in July 2009

In October of 2008 Westminster Council approved the demolition of the Theatre so that an Hotel could be built on the site, with two small Screens of 440 and 200 seats constructed in the basement.

Demolition of the Theatre and the rest of this large block at the south west corner of Leicester Square is projected to begin in the spring of 2010.

A sad end indeed for this former Theatre, and yet another loss to Leicester Square which was once the heart of London's West End Theatreland. For more information on the plans for the site click here.

For more information on Leicester Square's Theatrical heritage see this page.

You may like to visit the Odeon West End's own Website here.