New Victoria/Odeon

Theatre ID
2316
Built / Converted
1930
Dates of use
- 1930: continuing
Current state
Extant
Current use
dark (Multi-screen cinema until 2003)
Address
Clerk Street, Edinburgh, Lothian, EH8 9JH, Scotland

Details

Originally a very large and luxurious city centre super cinema with a caféorgan, orchestra and full stage facilities. The façe of five bays in faience had four Doric columns in antis above the entrance canopy with French windows opening on to a balcony for the café These were bricked up for offices, but later (c.1989) re-opened and restored. The interior was (and still is) commodious with grand marble-floored foyers with high mahogany dados in Roman classical style. The auditorium, with one tier facing the proscenium, was a distinctly Germanic interpretation of the ‘atmospheric’ style, then popular. Below a blue plaster ‘sky’ ceiling, the side walls featured five top-lit niches alternating the muses of art, music and drama (the work of a sculptor called Beattie) interspersed with slender, fluted engaged Ionic columns. The proscenium was pedimented with a coffered frame and the safety curtain was painted with a scene from a Roman forum. Although repainted, this interior survives substantially intact behind the structure and cladding of the cinema's five screen arrangement, the truncated original design still visible from the former circle.

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Events
- 1930 Use: continuing
- 1930 Design/Construction:
  - W E Trent - Architect
- 1982 Alteration: tripled
  - Unknown - Architect
- 1989 Alteration: screens 4 and 5 converted from front stalls
  - Unknown - Architect
- 1930 Owner/Management: Provincial Cinematograph Theatres
- 1936 Owner/Management: Gaumont British
- 1948 Owner/Management: Circuits Management Association (J A Rank)
- 1964 Owner/Management: Rank Theatres Ltd
- 1988 Owner/Management: Odeon Cinemas (Rank Leisure Division)
Capacities
- Original: 2,058
- Later: 1,784, following Todd A-O installation
Listings
- Grade B