Astoria (London)

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The Astoria Theater in October 2008

The Astoria Theater , also known as the London Astoria , was a venue that was located at 157 Charing Cross Road in Westminster , London until 2009 .

history

The building was built in 1893 as a department store for the canning company Crosse & Blackwell , founded in 1706 and taken over by Nestlé in 1960 . In the 1920s, the house was converted into a movie theater with 2000 seats, equipped with a dance hall in the basement and run under the name Astoria Theater . Among other things, Michael Todd's film Around the World in 80 Days was premiered there in July 1957 and the film The Fall of the Roman Empire was shown for the first time in March 1964 .

The cinema in the Astoria Theater was stopped in 1976, the house was rebuilt, the auditorium was redesigned and designed for live performances. The first production was Elvis the musical with PJ Proby and Shakin 'Stevens in the lead roles. This was followed by the stage version of the play Grease with Tracey Ullman and Sue Pollard in 1978 and the less successful musical Beatlemania in 1979. In the 1980s, the theater was rebuilt again and a restaurant was added. The shows Wild, Wild Women and Yakety Yak and Jukebox followed . In 1984 produced Andrew Lloyd Webber the first musical The Hired Man by Howard Goodall at the Astoria Theater. However, the piece was not very successful and was only played 164 performances. Another attempt to keep the theater going with the play Lennon failed in 1985.

After that, the Astoria Theater became a venue for live concerts by international artists such as Black Sabbath , Blur , The Cranberries , Manic Street Preachers , Nirvana , Prince , Tangerine Dream , U2 , Amy Winehouse and Eminem . A nightclub called Bang established itself in the basement of the building .

The house closed in 2009 and the building was demolished in favor of the London Crossrail rail project .

Discography (selection)

Numerous concerts by well-known artists have been recorded in the Astoria Theater and published on CD or DVD.

Web links

Commons : London Astoria  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Astoria (London). Retrieved September 26, 2013 .
  2. ^ Astoria Theater. Retrieved September 26, 2013 .
  3. ^ Manic Street Preachers - Live at London Astoria in 1994. BBC , accessed September 26, 2013 .
  4. U2 secret gig. In: nekozine.co.uk. February 7, 2001, accessed September 26, 2013 .
  5. ^ London Astoria. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on April 4, 2013 ; accessed on March 31, 2018 (English).
  6. Twisted Sister - Live At The Astoria. Laut.de , accessed on September 27, 2013 .

Coordinates: 51 ° 30 ′ 57 ″  N , 0 ° 7 ′ 50 ″  W.