Cambridge Theatre

The Cambridge Theatre is a theatre built in 1929-30 on a corner site facing Seven Dials, with returns to Mercer Street and Shelton Street, designed by Wimperis, Simpson and Guthrie. The interior was partly designed by Serge Chermayeff, with friezes by Anthony Gibbons Grinling. The front of the building is Portland stone, while the rear is brick.

The exterior is five storeys high. The chamfered corner features three round-arched main doorways sheltered by a projecting canopy. Further openings are round-arched to Earlham Street and flat-arched to Mercer Street. The upper floors have plain metal framed windows on each face. The fourth floor forms a balcony defined by distyle-in-antis piers, with a window behind and rising above the cornice. The returns have similar windows, with cornices alternating between windows on the first floor. Mercer Street has a pilaster architraved round-arched window and a stone balcony. The brick portion has mostly small metal framed windows and a large entrance for scenery.

The interior retains original features including the lighting sequence. A circular entrance foyer features a bronze frieze depicting nudes exercising. The main foyer has similar panels of dancing nudes, walls partly finished as fictive marble with uplighters on pilasters, a multi-layered ceiling with diamond patterned edges for concealed lighting, chandeliers, and a staircase with chrome handrails. The bar is in a similar style. A corridor has a barrel-vaulted corrugated ceiling lit from a coved cornice. The main doors are brass-clad with an etched moderne design of a zig-zag pattern threaded with undulations, small paned windows, and plain double strip pushers. The auditorium is fan-shaped and sweeps unbroken to the elliptical ceiling arranged in broad concentric bands for lighting. A two-tier balcony has a moderne triangular patterned balustrade extending to the front two bow-fronted boxes; one panel depicts schematic sun and buildings, and the other sun and waves. Uplighters are present, two with crystal fountain effect chandeliers. A tall fictive marble dado runs along the stalls, complemented by a moulded proscenium.

The Cambridge Theatre is noted as a rare, complete, and early example of a London theatre adopting the moderne, expressionist style that had been pioneered in Germany during the 1920s. It represented a conscious move away from the design excesses of music halls and contemporary cinemas, seeking a style appropriate for more sophisticated entertainment. This style, characterised by simple shapes, concealed lighting, shiny steelwork, and touches of bright colour, was not widely adopted by cinema designers until 1935. At the time of the design, Chermayeff was an interior designer with Waring & Gillow, and the original colour scheme was a contrast of dusky pink, pale blue, and silver.