Winter (Season) is Coming

We have announced our new season! The box office phones have barely stopped ringing since we announced our autumn line-up on Tuesday. It’s lovely to hear that people are just as excited for the upcoming shows as we are. If you’ve missed the news, here’s what’s coming up at the brand new Print Room at the Coronet…

First up is an adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Notes From Underground, starring the wonderful Harry Lloyd (who some readers may recognise from his TV roles such as Game of Thrones and, our favourite, Doctor Who). This show was first presented in Paris earlier this year.

Click to see the YouTube trailer.

Due to high demand, Harry will be performing two shows a night during the week. Since it’s coming direct from Paris, there’ll be certain nights with French surtitles. To start brushing up on your language skills now, here’s a review of the Parisian performance.

Then in November, we have legend of stage and screen, Dame Janet Suzman, co-starring in a beautiful redemptive tale about post-Apartheid South Africa. Solomon and Marion is a production from the Baxter Theatre and has been an international success, so we’re thrilled to give the show its London debut. We’ve just received note that the set has arrived in the UK – all the way from its American run at the Kennedy Center!

To finish off the year in December, we’re doing one of our popular Poetry @ the Print Room evenings – with David Harsent, the poet who launched our very first poetry evening. We also have a festive treat – Clive Francis performs his much-loved version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Because it’s Christmas, we’re doing some special prices for children, so be sure to check those out!

In other news, it’s a Bank Holiday weekend and of course the Notting Hill Carnival is readying itself to storm the streets. Some of you may remember that last year the Print Room screened a special documentary about the history of the procession. We love the spirit of this weekend and we wish everyone a happy Carnival!

Two Tickets To Broadway

Yesterday we discovered one of the old Box Offices where you bought tickets to the penny seats in the currently unused balcony of The Coronet.  A thick layer of dust had settled on both the glass window of the box office and the floor around it, and it was there, nestled into bed of jet black powder we found a cinema ticket.  A beautiful olive tickets with red printed ink, a ticket that puts any of the current cinema tickets of today to shame. 

“Two Tickets To Broadway colour by Technicolor” on one side and, “In the same programme The Racket via Robert Mitchum, Lizabeth Scott, Robert Ryan” on the other.

It seems like these two films would have been among the last to be viewed from The Coronet Balcony as it was closed off shortly afterwards.  There are so many beautiful features of this building that have been hidden away from public view, and under sixty years’ worth of dust, that are so exciting to discover and we hope desperately to be able to show to the public once more.

Each day we all fall more in love with this building and we can assure you that it is being treated the upmost compassion.

Two Tickets to Broadway

Director:

 James V. Kern

Writers:

 Sid Silvers, Hal Kanter Sammy Cahn

Stars:

 Tony Martin, Janet Leigh, Gloria DeHaven

The Racket

Director:

 John Cromwell

Writers:

 William Wister Haines (screenplay), W.R. Burnett (screenplay) Bartlett Cormack (play)

Stars:

 Robert Mitchum, Lizabeth Scott, Robert Ryan 

We have officially moved in!

It’s a very exciting time for the Print Room team.  While it was a very sad goodbye to the beautiful warehouse of no. 34 Hereford Rd that has been our home for the last 5 years we can’t wait to continue our work in the historic Coronet building and to add a cinema to program.

The move started bright and early on a Tuesday morning. Coffee was brewed and muscles were flexed.  In all honesty we would have been lost without our movers, Clockwork Removals, they were fantastic (at one point one of them suggested I sit down and drink a glass of wine – it was 11am).  Perhaps our biggest challenge in moving was the grand piano. We’ve got it safe and sound – and it’s still perfectly in tune, now we just have to get it on the roof.

The amount of stuff we have accumulated over the past five years is astonishing. Some of the best items we found in the old building were…

-          An Underwood typewriter

-          A complete works of Charles Dickens

-          A Native American headdress

We have brought all these and much more to our new home. Question is now, where will it all go?

The offices are nearly finished with their renovations, and we have begun to nest in the top of the building. We have a beautiful view of Notting Hill, and all the local shops have been very friendly. We’ve eaten in nearly every establishment on Notting Hill Gate – research, of course, for our future audience.

We are also all now experts in Ikea. We’ve all had a go at assembling something, from lamps to shelves to tables.  I am now fluent in diagram instructions.

We’re nearly ready to announce our new season and it’s a very exciting package of shows we have lined up for you. Make sure you’re signed up to our mailing list to get the news as it is released.

A Brief History of The Coronet

The Coronet Cinema is a twin screen cinema that has been at the heart of the Notting Hill area for over 100 years. Originally designed as a theatre by W.G.R. Sprague, a designer of many London’s West End theatres, it was built for the then grand sum of £25,000. The building first opened it's doors in 1898 and was regularly frequented by King Edward VII. Many of the biggest stars of the day including Ellen Terry and Sara Bernhardt trod its boards. Films first made an appearance as part of the variety bills at the theatre in 1916. The building became a full time cinema in 1923 and has been in operation as such continuously ever since.

The ghost of a female cashier reputedly haunts the cinema. Legend has it that when she was caught fiddling the box office receipts and confronted by the manager, she dashed out of his office, ran upstairs, then threw herself from the balcony.

In 1923, when the building went over to full time films, it was renamed The Coronet Cinema. A new projection box was installed in the former dress circle bar and the capacity was reduced from 1,143 to 1,010. Sound arrived in 1930 when a ticket would cost you 6d. (about 2p) The cinema was taken over by Gaumont/Provincial Cinematography Theatres in 1931 when the theatre boxes were removed, although the rest of the elaborate auditorium was retained.

The new owners upgraded the sound and doubled the price of a ticket to 1/-. (5p) In 1950 the cinema was renamed The Gaumont and the gallery was closed. By the 1960s the cinema was running second run, off-release, moving over films from other local first run cinemas.

Late in 1972, The Rank Organisation who operated the cinema put in plans to demolish the building. The plan was to build shops and offices on the site, but a huge outcry and a petition, which included the support of film star Deborah Kerr, thwarted this. The local Council stepped in and declared the immediate area a conservation area and the supporters won the fight. Rank relented and refurbished the cinema, but in 1977 sold it to an independent operator Panton Films, who changed the name back to The Coronet.

In recent years the cinema has featured in many films, TV programmes and adverts. Famously, the cinema featured in Notting Hill, starring Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. The cinema was also the last cinema in London to allow smoking in its auditorium, a practise now discontinued.

When the cinema was put up for sale in 2004, the sale attracted a lot of controversy and media attention. Various schemes were put forward including one from Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the founder of EasyJet, to turn the cinema into London’s first EasyCinema. Hollywood stars Joseph Fiennes, and Gillian Anderson got involved in a petition along with filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci. Once all the dust died down the cinema was bought by a local church, The Kensington Temple.

The new owners closed the cinema for a week on 12th May 2004, and there were fears that it would be converted into a church. However, a week later The Coronet re-opened. The new owners gave assurances that The Coronet would continue as a cinema, and they were plans for a detailed restoration of this historic building. True to their word, the church has invested, mainly behind the scenes, a large amount of money into the cinema. Screen two has had its sound upgraded and both cinemas have had new screens and projection lenses. The toilets have been completely remodelled, and the foyer has received attention with the addition of a new kiosk and box office.

In 2014 a local theatre called The Print Room took over the building – the staff are all very, very excited...

The Announcement

For those who struggle with Mondays, The Print Room foyer was not the place for you, as our team sat glued to laptops passing around press releases and making extensive use of the espresso machine.  Just five minutes after the announcement went live – It's official!  The Print Room will move to The Coronet - on the Evening Standard website our Twitter and Emails were inundated with congratulation messages.  We can’t thank you enough, the support has been overwhelming and we can’t wait to invite you into our new building.

Catch up on what is being said:

Evening Standard            BBC Online            The Stage           Notting Hill Post

Work has begun at The Coronet - and looking around again on Wednesday, I was reminded of just how beautiful the building is.  The possibilities and potential The Coronet offers The Print Room are endless.  I hope you’re as excited as I am. And just look at this view!

Oh, and of course I couldn't help myself from taking centre stage in front of the cinema screen.

We will be blogging each friday to keep people updated with our progress and to get even more information for this incredble move make sure you are as social with us as possible.

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These are a few of our favourite threes...

10. Three Musketeers

9. The Deathly Hallows

8. The Godfather Movies

7. BLT

6. The Little Shop of Horrors Back Up Singers

5. The First Wives Club

4. A Star Is Born.. 

Again.. 

And Again

3. The Bronte Sisters

2. The Sanderson Sisters

1. Triptych

BUY TICKETS HERE!

Production Images Triptych