The lights are coming back on at one of Camden Town’s most storied buildings. The former Odeon cinema on Parkway — a 1930s picture palace that showed its last film in February — is to reopen as Plaza Camden, a new cultural and arts centre for the neighbourhood.
The venue, which first opened in 1937 as the Gaumont Palace Regent’s Park, will be reborn as a neighbourhood hub offering fringe theatre, live events, DJ nights, Q&As with filmmakers, art exhibitions and screenings of classic films, alongside singalongs to favourite movies.
There will also be an independent café and a free Sunday morning film club for families, with food and drink served from morning into the evening.
Founders Paul Saunders, Lee Bennett and Ivor Wilkins — who bring decades of experience across music, hospitality, events and art — say they want to bring the building back into everyday neighbourhood life.
Saunders said the team was “opening Camden’s living room, not another late-night bar”, describing a cultural and arts centre for the whole neighbourhood, from a free children’s film club on Sunday mornings to live theatre, an art gallery, events and classic film at night — “a place that is open and accessible to everyone”.
Bennett said Camden had walked past the building for generations, adding that it was created for people to come together in 1937 and that was what the team wanted it to do again. “The Plaza is for the whole neighbourhood. The lights are back on,” he said.
Alongside the cultural programme, the venue will offer spaces for daytime meetings and working, private and corporate hire, and a year-round programme spanning music, theatre, cinema, art, comedy and entertainment.
90 years of the Parkway picture palace
The Gaumont Palace Regent’s Park opened its doors at 14 The Parkway in 1937, with Show Boat starring Paul Robeson as the opening-night feature. It was one of London’s great super-cinemas, with an auditorium seating 2,742 people, a café, private dressing rooms for live performers and a Compton organ that rose beside the stage.
In 1964 the Gaumont became the Odeon Parkway — the stalls were later transformed into a bingo club while a cinema continued above. Over the decades it reinvented itself as the Gate Cinema, Parkway Kings and Parkway Regency, and even had its own moment on the big screen, standing in for a Hamburg cinema in the 1994 Beatles film Backbeat.
From 1997 the building returned to life as a five-screen Odeon, but it closed in February 2026 ahead of expected demolition.
What Plaza Camden will offer
- Fringe theatre and live events
- DJ nights and Q&As with filmmakers
- Art exhibitions in a dedicated gallery space
- Classic film screenings and movie singalongs
- Independent café with food and drink from morning to evening
- Free Sunday morning film club for families
- Daytime meeting and working spaces, plus private and corporate hire
The bigger picture
The relaunch buys the historic building time, but its long-term future is already mapped out. The site forms part of the wider Camden Town Xchange redevelopment, approved by Camden Council in December 2025, which will transform the plot between Parkway, Arlington Road and Inverness Street into 244 student studios and 49 affordable homes, with new restaurants, shops and a café.
Under those plans, due for completion by 2030, the cinema will eventually be demolished and replaced with a 1,000 sq m cultural and leisure space — with the Art Deco frontage retained and restored to create the entrance to the new development.
The reopening is a rare good-news story for London’s historic cinemas. In Beckenham, supporters are rallying to save their own Odeon, while Stepney’s Genesis Cinema has taken its fight against student flats to a planning inquiry. It also adds to a busy cultural calendar, with Kaleidoscope Festival returning to Alexandra Palace in 2027.
The opening night of Plaza Camden takes place on Saturday, October 17, from 6pm, with music by God Made Me Funky. Further details are available at plazacamden.com.
