To celebrate the launch of the Night Tube this September, when services on some lines will begin to run through the night on Fridays and Saturdays, London Underground have partnered with the British Film Institute and the Rooftop Film Club to open a pop-up cinema in Charing Cross station.
The Underground Film Club is located in a disused part of the station, which was vacated in November 1999 when the Jubilee line stopped calling at the station and was instead rerouted from Green Park to Westminster, and onwards to Waterloo, London Bridge, Canary Wharf and Stratford.
This part of the station has subsequently been used for extensive filming, featuring in 28 Weeks Later, The Bourne Ultimatum (both 2007), Skyfall (2012) and Paddington (2014), among others. The latter is on the bill this week, alongside classics such as Cinema Paradiso, Blade Runner and Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
The pop-up runs from 29 May to 2 June and we’re here this evening to watch Casablanca. The box office is located through an unremarkable door in the wall that was erected to seal-off the abandoned Jubilee line part of the station in 1999. The escalators are still present and lit in Underground colours as we head down to the old concourse.
At the bottom, an area once-bustling with hurried commuters has been transformed, with popcorn and (non-alcoholic) drinks available from a small bar at the end and a hotdog counter located in a passageway to Platform 4.
We are then guided along one of the old platforms to reach a second part of the concourse, where approximately one hundred directors’ chairs are lined-up in front of a projection screen. Sound is delivered through wireless headphones, presumably to avoid disturbing staff and members of the public in other areas of the station, as well as for acoustic reasons.
Having recently returned from Morocco, we both thoroughly enjoy the movie, which received the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1943. And then we’re led up a staircase in between another set of abandoned escalators, emerging back in to the usual Underground hustle, this time near the Bakerloo line.