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Is it OK for a billionaire to turn an iconic cinema into a hotel?

Is it OK for a billionaire to turn an iconic cinema into a hotel?

A threat from developer Asif Aziz to London’s famed Prince Charles Cinema has galvanised those fed up with the city’s disregard for its own culture.

The Prince Charles Cinema is famed for its sold-out sessions of cinema, heavy on audience participation. Getty Images

The Prince Charles Cinema, for those who don’t know, is not an arts cinema with those leather sofas where people bring you bottles of chilled white wine. Operating as a film house since 1969, it is famous for its all-night movie marathons (pyjamas and pillows) and its unusual levels of audience interaction, from Sing-Along-a-Rocky Horror to Solve-Along-a-Murder She Wrote, where punters raise miniature placards of Jessica Fletcher’s face at suspicious moments.

At Sing-Along-a-Wicker Man, a screening of the ’70s film, the audience joined arms for the burning of Edward Woodward and sang Summer Is Icumen In. Under every seat was a paper bag containing a red liquorice bootlace, to be eaten at the moment the missing girl’s “naval string” was found hanging on a tree.

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Original URL: https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/arts-and-culture/is-it-ok-for-a-billionaire-to-turn-an-iconic-cinema-into-a-hotel-20250217-p5lcxf