Time: 11 am

Date: Tuesday 12 December

Meeting point: Elephant & Castle Train Station at Elephant Park exit, finishes at CoolTan Arts (155 Walworth Road) around 1pm

Price: £6 / Free for concessions and CoolTan Arts participants

Join CoolWalks for a walk through South London’s cinemas past and present.

Learn about the evolution of movie watching from the 1880s through to its cultural peak during wartime, and its decline in the 60s. As we thread our way through the streets we begin to witness vividly the cinema catastrophe of the very recent past when the highstreets lay littered with vacant auditoria. Conjuring a time when South London attracted huge audiences to its cinemas - particularly to some of the large supercinemas around Elephant & Castle. Finally we will make a poignant stop at the Coronet before enjoying hospitality at the Melodramatic Elephant in the Haunted Castle exhibition, hosted at CoolTan Arts new home. What will the future hold for cinema going in our new urban landscape?

This walk is organised in collaboration with The Melodramatic Elephant in the Haunted Castle performance and exhibition:

Following on from a widely acclaimed play, this multi-media exhibition is about the history of the Coronet Theatre and how performance and art has always been at the heart of London’s Elephant and Castle. The Coronet will be closing its doors for the final time on New Year’s Day 2018 after 147 years. This exhibition poignantly dramatizes the intertwined fate of a Victorian actress and the building as a theatre, cinema and contemporary music venue.

Visit the exhibition from 9 - 20 December at 155 Walworth Road, London, SE17 1RS.