Prince Charles Cinema
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The Prince Charles Cinema is located just north of Leicester Square in London's West End. With famously low prices starting from as little as £1 it shows a rotating program of cult, arthouse, and classic films alongside the best of recent hollywood releases - typically more than ten different films a week on a single screen. It also hosts the a popular sing-a-long version of The Sound of Music, which has been shown on a regular basis for over five years. The cinema has achieved a cult status amongst fans, due to its great atmosphere and attitude, sticking out as the only independent cinema in the sea of multiplexes and chain cinemas elsewhere in the West End.
It offers annual memberships which entitle the card holder to a discount all films and money off drinks in the licensed downstairs bar, which you can take into the screen. It has also now re-launched The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which regularly sells out.
The cinema has an interesting history, having once existed as a theatre, and then as a porn cinema. A relic of its past can be seen in the double 'lovers' chairs on the back two rows (these however are brand new clean versions which the management decided to reinstall after a recent refurbishment).
The cinema was famously used as the setting for a number of stunts in the cult British sketch show, Trigger Happy TV. Filming was facilitated by the cinema having a balcony from which aerial shots could be taken, as was the apparent willingness of the management to subject their patrons to some hilarious (and ultimately harmless) pranks. Various sketches involved the show's presenter, Dom Joly along with extras from the show annoying cinema-goers by dressing up as severely obese people trying to squeeze past whilst spilling popcorn from massively oversized buckets, sitting in front of them with enormous fake wigs, and dressing up as Beefeaters taking up whole rows of seats. Other more bizarre incidents involved the use of animal costumes. In one scene two rabbits were seen simulating intercourse, and in another Joly dressed up as a snake and slithered around on the floor, as a supposed addition to a screening advising people to be vigilant about pick-pockets.
Hosting a variety of special previews, premieres, cast and crew screenings and other events the cinema is also available for private hire.
"The Prince Charles Cinema is everything an independent movie theatre should be. For lovers of quality films, this is Mecca" Quentin Tarantino
"The day Kill Bill plays the Prince Charles is the day Kill Bill truly comes home" Quentin Tarantino
