Work To Start On Chiswick Cinema 'Within Weeks '

The cinema will set up a Founder Members' scheme shortly

CGI of the 'Chiswick Lane' Picturehouse plan

Construction work on the new Chiswick cinema is to start within the next few weeks, Chiswickw4.com has been told.

Builders will move into the former Ballet Rambert premises in the first two weeks of November. July had been the original target for starting work but the company says that it now hopes to have renovation completed and ready for opening in early 2020.

Newly-appointed Marketing Manager, Katie Gilbert, says that The Chiswick Cinema will shortly offer local people the option to become Founder Members.

The details of the Founder Member scheme will be available next month. When the cinema opens, there will then be a system for people to take out annual membership.

The usual format with Founder Members, (as seen in other Picturehouse cinemas) is for the first few thousand people to join to get their names integrated into a Founder Member's Wall. They generally get benefits of one year or more membership and invitations to first look screenings, previews, and Premiere or discounted tickets.

There will also be other forms of membership options.

The new cinema also hopes to have live broadcasts, such as the New York Met Opera.

Staff have already been into the building saving the Rambert Dance Company artwork before construction starts. They are hoping to use some of this artwork in the new interior of the cinema to retain some of the heritage and history of the building.

The design plan is for an independent five screen cinema, with a terraced bar and cafe. The largest cinema, Screen One, to have 127 seats, while the fifth screen would be private viewings.

The project has taken several years to get off the ground largely due to difficulties getting agreement between the freeholder of the site and the cinema backers.

This agreement was concluded last June between cinema entrepreneur, Lyn Goleby, the co-founder and former Managing Director of the Picturehouse chain. She left Picturehouse in 2017 after twenty-five years, to pursue new interests in independent cinema in the UK.

Picturehouse originally bought the 6,500sq ft dance studio site at 96-98 Chiswick High Road from Rambert Dance Company for £1.5 million in 2013. The Picturehouse chain has subsequently been acquired by Cineworld and the Chiswick project was taken over by Ms Goleby's company Jubilacion Ltd. You can go on their Facebook page for further updates.

Jubilacion Limited has been granted planning permission from Hounslow Council for a ‘cantilevered steel structure with integrated lightning system' at the front of the former Ballet Rambert site.

Lyn Goleby at the Green Days fete

The application was described as a modification of the design in the original planning permission P/2016/3850 which was granted in 2016 to Lochstill, a company owned by Kim Gottlieb, the property developer who owns part of the site.

It is anticipated that the original firm of architects used for the first planning application, will be involved. Lyn Goleby is is currently involved in the conversion of a bingo hall in Bury St Edmunds to provide extra screens for the Abbeygate Cinema.

In February 2017 Lyn Goleby acquired Picturehouse’s distribution business in a management buyout with personnel from the existing Picturehouse team including Marc Allenby. The new company was bought by Sir Howard Panter (chair of the Rambert Dance Company) and Rosemary Squire OBE, who own Trafalgar Entertainment . It was renamed Trafalgar Releasing. Having control over the distribution of films gives the new company more freedom to show films to its own schedule.

They say, “We hope that the cinema will bring the wonderful world of film to the community of Chiswick who have already shown a huge interest in its arrival.”

October 13, 2018