Sometimes, unexpectedly good news comes from nowhere. So it has proved with the happy tidings that the Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square has been saved. After a long and uncertain 21-month period in which it looked as if the cinema’s lease might be prematurely curtailed or simply ended altogether, the company has signed a new 25-year lease, sans break clause, with Zedwell PSQ Ltd, the building’s owner.
This brings to a welcome end the uncertainty that began in January 2025, when the lease, which was due to expire last September, looked as if it might not be renewed on its present terms. The landlords attempted to introduce a six-month break clause that could be exercised at any time. The belief among many cineastes was that Zedwell, which has been building large, moderately priced hotels all over London – including a pod hotel behind the old Trocadero in Piccadilly – might have wanted to turn the Prince Charles into further accommodation.
What it offers is a truly joyful communal experience
Legally, they would have had every right to do so. But this would have had the unfortunate effect of closing the only decent repertory cinema in the West End, a place that is dear to the hearts of everyone from A-list filmmakers, including Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson, to ordinary punters. None other than Sir Christopher Nolan said that ‘Film culture in Great Britain is unthinkable without the Prince Charles.’ And, of course, there is Tommy Wiseau, whose interactive screenings of his legendarily terrible B-movie The Room, often with him on hand, have become their own cult hit.
I was proud to be one of the 168,645 people to have signed a petition that has now helped ensure that the Prince Charles will remain a going concern for the next quarter-century. I have had some of the most memorable evenings of my cinema-going life there, from seeing classics such as Sunset Boulevard and The Searchers for the first time to the more riotous recent experience of catching the recut version of the notorious Malcolm McDowell sex epic Caligula, which proved revelatory. On every occasion, the film was sold out, which suggests that Londoners, and those from further afield, are willing to come into what is otherwise a pretty reprehensible part of the city to lose themselves in a good movie for a couple of hours.
Other cities, such as Paris and New York, have a far more developed film-going culture, and repertory cinemas, which largely specialise in screening several classic or cult pictures a day, have proliferated. London does not share the same audience. While there are undeniably great independent cinemas throughout the city – the Garden in Covent Garden is wonderful, as is the Nickel in Clerkenwell and, of course, the BFI Southbank, the statelier, more establishment option compared with the more punk-rock offering of the Prince Charles – it is harder than ever to find unique cinemas that are not just showing the same old new-release rubbish.
As someone who has absolutely no interest in going to see, say, Street Fighter, but who would be delighted to find a screening of The Third Man, I have reasonably limited options, but the Prince Charles has consistently supplied me with a range of choices. Looking ahead at the programme, I see that I could watch anything from high-class horror in the form of Alien and The Shining, in the run-up to Halloween, to cult hits such as Mulholland Drive and In the Mood for Love. There are even a few proper oddities, such as Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein and, gloriously, a ‘Solve-Along-Murder-She-Wrote’ on 22 October, in which the audience are invited to guess the solution to one of the inimitable J. B. Fletcher’s murder mysteries, complete with quizzes, singalongs and prizes.
There is a healthy element of camp to the Prince Charles, which can be experienced by attending many of its interactive events. Some of these take place elsewhere, too, such as the Rocky Horror Picture Show singalongs, but the regular screenings of The Room, which usually sell out, are a law unto themselves.
There are also far more established filmmakers than Wiseau who grace the cinema with their presence. I still remember going to an Edgar Wright-curated day of screenings of seminal action films to celebrate the release of his 2007 picture Hot Fuzz. The day ended with Wright and his cast, including Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and a very shy Olivia Colman, providing a live commentary on the picture, to uproarious effect. This is not an experience that can be replicated at your local Vue or Odeon, or even, in many cases, at a Curzon or Everyman. These might screen the odd classic film, but they do not have the sheer dedication to the quirky and the esoteric that the Prince Charles has maintained since it opened on 26 December 1962.
A quarter of a century is a long time, and it remains to be seen what happens in an industry that is currently being torn apart by the twin demons of streaming and increasingly poor films being released in cinemas. The Prince Charles has, of course, had to put up its prices since the days of the ludicrously cheap tickets it used to offer (although membership brings them down again, and there are regular £1 screenings). But what it offers is a truly joyful communal experience, where you can sit with friends, loved ones or complete strangers and laugh, cry or gasp at whatever you’re seeing on the screen in front of you.
Westminster Council listed the cinema as an Asset of Community Value before it was saved for the nation, and it was right to do so. As the cinema now says, with deserved triumphalism, on its website: ‘You have all placed your trust in us, and as we continue on for at least another 25 years, we promise to never forget that. We’ll be right here…’ To which all any film lover can say, mindful of the continued existence of this temple to cinema, is ‘Amen to that.’
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