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Dominion Theatre

Art Deco architecture in LondonBuildings and structures on Tottenham Court RoadGrade II listed buildings in the London Borough of CamdenGrade II listed theatresTheatres completed in 1929
Theatres in the London Borough of CamdenUse British English from January 2014West End theatres
P926 Dominion Theatre
P926 Dominion Theatre

The Dominion Theatre is a West End theatre and former cinema on Tottenham Court Road, close to St Giles Circus and Centre Point, in the London Borough of Camden. Planned as primarily a musical theatre, it opened in 1929, but the following year became a cinema—it hosted the London premiere of Charlie Chaplin's City Lights with Chaplin in attendance—and in 1933 after liquidation of the controlling company was sold to Gaumont cinema chain, which later became part of the Rank Organisation. It was a major premiere cinema until the 1970s, when it began to host live concerts. In January 1981 it once more became primarily a live performance venue, and has since hosted many musicals, notably We Will Rock You which ran from 2002 to 2014. It also hosted the Royal Variety Performance seven times in the 1990s and early 2000s. It became a listed building in 1988 and after being saved from redevelopment, was sold to Apollo Leisure Group and subsequently to the Nederlander Organization. In the 21st century it has been extensively refurbished and renovated, including reclaiming spaces that had been turned into offices. On Sundays Hillsong Church London holds services in the theatre.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Dominion Theatre (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Dominion Theatre
New Oxford Street, London Bloomsbury (London Borough of Camden)

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Latitude Longitude
N 51.516556 ° E -0.130139 °
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Exit 2 - Tottenham Court Road / New Oxford Street

New Oxford Street
WC1A 1HL London, Bloomsbury (London Borough of Camden)
England, United Kingdom
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P926 Dominion Theatre
P926 Dominion Theatre
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Tottenham Court Road chiller

In the 1930s, London Transport Board installed an experimental refrigeration plant on the London Underground at Tottenham Court Road Underground station. The plant was operational between 1938 and 1949. The experimental plant was built because temperature measurements through the 1930s showed that the Underground was steadily getting warmer. Although the temperatures were not at unsafe levels (peaks of 82 °F / 27.8 °C occurred at a few stations in summertime), the LTB perceived that if the trend continued, cooling in summer would be required at some time in the future, and it would be sensible to develop suitable technology. The chiller used water as the working fluid. The evaporators consisted of indirect heat exchangers mounted in the platform tunnels which were fed water at just above 0 °C. The condenser was sited in the outflow air path of an existing tunnel cooling fan, which had been installed in a disused lift shaft at the station in 1933. The outgoing air going through the condenser was warmed by 2–3 °C, before being discharged to atmosphere. Two descriptions of the cooling capacity exist. The first (from 1939) gives the capacity as "about half a million British thermal units per hour." The second (1982) states that it was "equivalent to melting approximately 51 tonnes of ice per day." In SI units, these are 146 kW and 197 kW respectively. The experimental plant was not considered a success, mainly because the cooling it provided was at high cost. An extractor fan of the same cooling capacity ('cooling capacity' in the sense that a fan removes warm air in the tunnels and replaces it with cooler air from outside) used up one-eighth of the electricity of the experimental refrigeration plant. Not only that, such a fan was easier to maintain and cost less to install. In the austere post-war years, the electrical power drawn by the chiller could not be justified. It was used intermittently during the 1940s, and was decommissioned in 1949.