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You are here: Home>Herts history>Towns and Villages>St Albans>Odeon Journey

Odeon Journey

Odeon Journey was a Heritage Lottery Fund project in collaboration with St Albans Civic Society, St Albans Museums, St Albans District Council and St Albans Arts Sport and Health (SAASH).

The history of the Odeon cinema has been preserved thanks to a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. During 2011, St Albans Civic Society recorded and collected memories of the Odeon cinema, culminating in an exhibition at the Museum of St Albans between May and September 2012. Local people volunteered as oral history recorders, interviewers and interviewees; took part in dance, song and drama workshops to recreate some classic movie moments from their favourite films seen at the old Odeon, and gave us filmed and recorded interviews.

Over the course of the Odeon Journey project, we collected memories from people who went to the Odeon as audiences, or worked there as usherettes, managers, projectionists and child monitors.  Memories have been gathered in various ways; on film, in person, in letters or as part of an oral history archive. Some of these were then recreated by community participants through drama, dance and songs from classic movie musicals.
There has been a cinema on the site in London Road since 1908; it was host to a range of different entertainments, including film, dances and performances by some of the world’s leading music artists including the Rolling Stones and Cliff Richard.

The exhibition has finished but you can read, watch and listen to other people's cinema memories here.
You can also borrow our edited oral histories featuring former customers, projectionists and other Odeon staff on CD from the Museum of St Albans, Hatfield Road. Transcripts are also available to look at.
This is the story of the Odeon’s journey from 1908-1995.

  • Arthur Melbourne Cooper, film pioneer and cinema builder
    Arthur Melbourne Cooper, film pioneer and cinema builder
    Click above to play the video In 27 July 1908, Arthur Melbourne Cooper (1874 – 1961) opened the Alpha Picture House, ...
  • Bad Behaviour: The Changing World and the Cinema
    Bad Behaviour: The Changing World and the Cinema
    Click above to watch the video The world was changing. From the 1960s, cultural changes and special effects such as 3D ...
  • Childhood at the Odeon
    Childhood at the Odeon
    My grandmother used to be a cleaner at the Odeon in the 60s. She would take me with her to ...
  • Children's Poems about the Odeon
    Children's Poems about the Odeon
    The Odeon Journey project visited two local primary schools, Mandeville and Camp, and worked with 60 children in year 5 ...
  • Courting at the Odeon
    Courting at the Odeon
    The Odeon filled an important social need. It was a way you met your friends, or if you got a ...
  • Films at the Odeon
    Films at the Odeon
    My grandmother used to be a cleaner at the Odeon in the 60s. She would take me with her to ...
  • High Society: The Golden Age of Cinema
    High Society: The Golden Age of Cinema
    Click above to watch the video In 1931, a newly-built, glamorous cinema opened on the site, named the Capitol.  Although there ...
  • Love Story: Romance at the Odeon
    Love Story: Romance at the Odeon
    Click above to watch the video Before the social and sexual revolutions of the 1960s and 70s, the Odeon cinema was ...
  • Odeon to Odyssey Timeline 1908 - 2012
    Odeon to Odyssey Timeline 1908 - 2012
    Click above to play the video 27 July 1908 Arthur Melbourne Cooper (1874 – 1961) opened his Alpha Picture House in St ...
  • Staff at the Odeon
    Staff at the Odeon
    Usherettes Usherettes were both adored and feared by audiences; they would patrol the aisles – and the back row – with ...
  • The Last Picture Show:  end of an era
    The Last Picture Show: end of an era
    Click above to watch the video The Last Picture Show:  end of an era In 1973, the St Albans Odeon was among ...
  • Various Memories of the Odeon
    Various Memories of the Odeon
    My last memory of the Odeon was of a charmless concrete box which was subsequently badly divided into a few ...
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