Phoenix Theatre

The Phoenix Theatre, built in 1929-30, was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, Cecil Masey & Bertie Crewe, for Sydney Bernstein. The interior was designed by Theodore Komisarjevsky, with painted panels by Vladimir Polunin. The building is constructed of stucco, brick, and stone.

The theatre has facades facing Charing Cross Road and Phoenix Street. The Charing Cross Road facade occupies a curved corner and features Corinthian columns from the ground to the second floors, supporting a curved entablature. Above this is an attic storey with seven deeply recessed rectangular windows, each with enriched architraves, with the right and left windows projecting. A cornice sits above, leading to a pantiled roof. The ground floor has two pairs of doors with decorative enrichment and 14 bevelled lights. The facade to Phoenix Street also has a ground floor with three pairs of similarly decorated doors, each with bevelled lights and decorative fanlights recessed between decorative metal grilles. Timber-panelled doors are recessed within brick architraves to either side of the grilles. A continuous metal balcony runs at first-floor level. A central feature of stone is marked by three round-headed windows extending from the first to the second floors, with moulded architraves supported by Ionic twisted columns, and includes a balcony. Fluted, paired pilasters flank this feature. Above, a richly decorated entablature is topped by a modillioned cornice, blocking course, and four brick dormers. Brickwork surrounds twelve-light metal casement windows at the first floor, with brick pediments above, and twelve-light metal windows with brick lugged architraves at the second floor.

The interior is of elaborate Renaissance design, with both the auditorium and foyer embellished with painted panels. The elaborately painted safety curtain forms an integral part of the auditorium’s decoration. The theatre’s well-preserved interior decoration reflects Bernstein’s subsequent patronage of Komisarjevsky and Polunin in the ‘Granada’ chain of cinemas.