In the mid-1930s there were several smaller movie theatres operating in Woolwich, when two leading companies in the business, Sidney Bernstein's Granada and Oscar Deutsch's Odeon, decided more or less simultaneously to establish large cinemas in the town.

In Woolwich however, Cecil Masey (1881–1960) and Reginald Uren (1903–1988) built an outwardly rather severe theatre, but with a lavish interior by Russian-born designer Theodore Komisarjevsky (1882–1954).

Special guests at the opening ceremony were American actress Glenda Farrell and British comic actor Claude Hulbert.

[1] The theatre regularly played host to Christmas pantomimes and musical acts like Buddy Holly in 1958 and Roy Orbison with the Beatles in their famous 1963 tour.

The large Wurlitzer theatre organ, which had been played by Reginald Dixon,[2] was removed in 1996 and sold to the village hall in Tywyn, Wales.

The main hall is a brown brick block along Woolwich High Street, for which Masey had intended a relief with the name of the cinema.

The elegantly curved asymmetrical front on Powis Street houses the vestibule with the former box office and the foyers, previously with a café-restaurant.

[5] At the time, the Architect & Building News wrote that it had "a complexity and lavish exuberance rare even in cinema decoration".

Three sets of doors with wrought-iron bars and cast-iron handles lead into the double-height foyer with galleries on three sides.

The foyer has a coffered ceiling, a large central chandelier, four smaller ones and six pairs of wall lights, all in Gothic style.

The central feature is a monumental Romanesque style arch with jambs made up of seven columns and a tympanum extending up into a pointed gable.