Oxford St, F. Verity and S. Beverley, 1930 – closed September 2004.

The Odeon, now lying hollow and stripped bare, opened with suitable pomp and ceremony, all faux art deco complete with flattened pilasters and stylized capitals, on Monday 16 October 1930 as The Paramount Theatre, a flashy American import to Oxford St. The architects Verity & Beverley were Paramount’s regular architects for their UK enterprise, also responsible for the Paramount Leeds, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Glasgow, Liverpool, Birmingam and  Tottenham Court Road, London, and this was completed in record time, accommodating 1400 in the stalls, 650 in the mezzanine and 950 in the grand circle and balcony. Sumptuous and colossal with this seating capacity of 3000, the local press described it as the ‘last word in sound cinematograph entertainment’, but it nevertheless had to turn away over a thousand people on its famous opening night, which pulled out all…