Cinema is back in the heart of the Odeon building! Storyhouse’s new boutique 100-seat cinema will screen a range of classic, independent and blockbuster films.
Films for June are on sale now, with more screenings to be added in the coming weeks. IMPORTANT!………check with STORYHOUSE direct for film information
Featured in the June line-up is: some of the latest blockbuster releases, National Theatre and Royal Opera House Live broadcasts, world cinema, Saturday morning family screenings and big-screen classics plus a series of movies programmed for the Women of the World, Chester festival.
Main features
The first ever screening in the brand-new cinema on Friday 12 May is the much-anticipated wartime drama Their Finest, which features an all-star cast including Bill Nighy and Gemma Arterton. Other main release includes the latest in the Alien franchise; Alien: Covenant, starring Michael Fassbender, comedy-action Mindhorn – from the writers of The Mighty Boosh.
Epic action adventure Wonder Woman, political thriller starring Jessica Chastain Miss Sloane, and, based on the best-selling books, Diary of a Wimpy Kid starring Chloe Moretz, My Cousin Rachel starring Rachel Weisz, Julian Barnes’ A Sense of an Ending, and The Secret Scripture based on The Man Booker-shortlisted book.
World cinema
International cinema will also be coming to Chester; during May and June cinema-goers can see Kristen Stewart in acclaimed ghost story Personal Shopper and the Oscar-winning foreign language film The Salesman.
Family Saturdays
Saturday mornings in Storyhouse will be a place for families to watch a movie together. Every Saturday at 11am there will be a family film screened – the first line-up includes BFG, Lego Batman and anime classic When Marnie was There. Accompanying these screenings will be film-themed free arts and crafts in the library.
Event cinema
Storyhouse will be bringing the best of British theatre to Chester by screening National Theatre productions. The first in the bill includes the National Theatre’s heralded family show Peter Pan, the Royal Opera House’s Otello and the Yaël Farber’s blistering new production of Salomé. Plus Olivier award-winning Yerma – Billie Piper stars in the Young Vic’s sell-out production of Lorca’s ‘shattering’ masterpiece, as well as Angels in America – the National Theatre’s new production of Tony Kushner’s two-part seminal American classic, with an all-star cast including Andrew Garfield, Denise Gough and Nathan Lane, directed by Olivier-award winner Marianne Elliot.
Classic films
As well as blockbusters, independent, world and family films, bring the classics will return to the original Odeon with a series of reissues. Screenings of Woody Allen’s Manhattan and Jack Nicholson’s break-through movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest are first on the bill.
The Storyhouse cinema will have relaxed screenings and autism and baby and toddler friendly screenings.
Tickets to see a film cost £8.50 during the day (before 5pm) and £9.50 in the evening. Under 26s £6 / £7
Saturday morning and toddler friendly screenings are £4 for all tickets
The Storyhouse Culture Centre is now open.
Storyhouse is the UK’s largest regional arts project under construction. It will open with a run of four home-produced shows, performed in rep, by a company of 26 of the country’s finest actors.
Artistic director Alex Clifton said ‘We are so thrilled to be announcing our much anticipated inaugural season. We believe we have four brilliant stories to tell. We open with the down-and-dirty musical The Beggar’s Opera, in a new version for Chester with an original score, rewritten for our time. Alice in Wonderland will be a joyful family show, that meets a little girl on the last afternoon of her childhood, escaping into wonderland. All of the plays in the season tackle big, important questions about our shared cultural identity, and none more obviously than Julius Caesar, a political thriller, perfectly set to take audiences to the rancid heart of power. A Midsummer Night’s Dream will be an on-stage carnival and celebrate the glorious diversity and volatility of human desire’.
Councillor Louise Gittins, Cabinet Member, Communities and Wellbeing for Cheshire West and Chester Council said: “Storyhouse will be a place the borough’s communities can come together and experience the UK’s leading theatre, opera, dance and music companies – it will create opportunities not available before. What better way to start than with Storyhouse locally produced programme. This is the first of many exciting stories.”
Councillor Stuart Parker, Shadow Cabinet Member, Communities and wellbeing added:
“Storyhouse marks a substantial shift in the region’s growing cultural offer, the wait has definitely been worth it to see the transformation into a venue for us all to feel a part of.”
Graham Lister, Project Director, Storyhouse building said:
This has been an extraordinary journey of collaboration involving Cheshire West and Chester Council, Arts Council England, our principal sponsors MBNA and the wonderful storyhouse team – together in less than 4 years we have financed, designed and constructed a building for us all to be proud of.
Designed by Bennetts Associates and funded by Cheshire West and Chester council, Arts Council England and trusts and foundations Storyhouse will be the largest public building ever in Chester. Full of new creative spaces, the theatre will transform from an 800 seat proscenium arch in the autumn and winter presenting national and international touring productions, to a more intimate 500 seat thrust in the spring, summer and Christmas time. Other spaces include a 150 seat studio theatre, open plan foyers, hospitality spaces, and a library that spills across all areas of the operation – including a dedicated children’s library complete with wet play, arts and crafts spaces and a storytelling room. Storyhouse is located in the heart of Cheshire, set alongside the town hall and cathedral – completing a trinity of a cultural, civic and spiritual public spaces.
Tickets for all four productions are on sale now
Note: Information regarding programmes, times, etc, should be checked DIRECTLY on Storyhouse website.