place

Academy 1-2-3 (cinema)

1906 establishments in England1913 establishments in England1931 establishments in England1986 disestablishments in EnglandFormer cinemas in London
Use British English from June 2019

The Academy was a cinema located at 165 Oxford Street, Westminster, at the junction of Poland Street. Films (in the shape of Hale's Tours of the World) were shown at the address from at least 1906, and it opened in January 1913 as the Picture House to show The Miracle, with the intention of becoming "the home of the world's most realistic films". The Picture House continued to show films throughout the 1920s. It re-opened in 1931 as the Academy, becoming London's pre-eminent art house cinema, and for over 50 years introduced British audiences to major films, beginning with auteurs such as Jean Renoir and Marcel Carné; in later years, the Academy largely established the reputations of Ingmar Bergman, Andrzej Wajda, Satyajit Ray, Jean-Luc Godard, Miklós Jancsó and others in Britain. The Academy's high standards were maintained by a succession of three managers: Elsie Cohen, George Hoellering and Ivo Jarosy. The cinema was damaged during a bombing raid in 1940 and re-opened in 1944. The basement housed a ballroom from the early 1950s where the Marquee Club held jazz sessions from 1958 to 1964 with musicians such as Johnny Dankworth, Chris Barber, Alexis Korner and Tubby Hayes. The Rolling Stones played their first gig there in 1962. The New Academy cinema expanded to two and then three screens in the 1960s to become the Academy 1-2-3, and closed in 1986 after operating almost continuously for 80 years.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Academy 1-2-3 (cinema) (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

Academy 1-2-3 (cinema)
Poland Street, London Soho

Geographical coordinates (GPS) Address Nearby Places
placeShow on map

Wikipedia: Academy 1-2-3 (cinema)Continue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 51.51566 ° E -0.13767 °
placeShow on map

Address

Poland Street

Poland Street
W1D 2JL London, Soho
England, United Kingdom
mapOpen on Google Maps

Share experience

Nearby Places

Princess's Theatre, London
Princess's Theatre, London

The Princess's Theatre or Princess Theatre was a theatre in Oxford Street, London. The building opened in 1828 as the "Queen's Bazaar" and housed a diorama by Clarkson Stanfield and David Roberts. It was converted into a theatre and opened in 1836 as the Princess's Theatre, named for then Princess Victoria before her accession as queen. After an unsuccessful series of promenade concerts, alterations were made on the interior, and the theatre was reopened on 26 December 1842 with Vincenzo Bellini's opera La sonnambula. The theatre, by now under the management of John Medex Maddox, presented operas and other entertainments, such as General Tom Thumb. The theatre is best remembered for Charles Kean's Shakespeare revivals, beginning in 1849 and continuing for ten years. Kean presented these in lavish and well-researched "authentic" productions and also presented French drama. Dion Boucicault became the theatre's leading actor, and Ellen Terry and Henry Irving got their starts at the theatre. Thereafter, the theatre presented mainly melodrama. H. J. Byron wrote a series of Christmas pantomimes for the theatre, beginning in 1859 with Jack the Giant Killer, or, Harlequin, King Arthur, and ye Knights of ye Round Table and followed the next year by Robinson Crusoe, or Harlequin Friday and the King of the Caribee Islands! In 1863, Sefton Parry, recently returned from Cape Town, appeared as Cousin Joe in the farce The Rough Diamond. In 1864, a particularly popular drama was presented at the theatre called The Streets of London. The theatre was demolished and rebuilt in 1879–80. After this, the theatre continued to present melodramas, including The Lights o' London (1881) and The Silver King (1882). The theatre closed permanently in 1902 after its last success, The Fatal Wedding, and the building became a warehouse. It was demolished in 1931 and replaced by a Woolworth store, and then subsequently by the Oxford Walk shopping centre. The site is now the location of a sports store.