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If you walk down Clerkenwell Road, a red building will catch your eye. It’s a bazaar of the bizarre, a shrine to the shocking.
Welcome to The Nickel, London’s newest – and cultiest – cinema. A DIY affair, it’s owned and operated by Dominic Hicks, a movie aficionado who has travelled the globe’s repertory cinema scene, from New York to LA, Barcelona to Japan.
The Nickel Cinema began life in October 2023 as a pop-up in pubs like Camberwell’s The Bear, before expanding to The Cinema Museum, Jamboree in King’s Cross and All Is Joy in Dean Street. The events regularly sold out as The Nickel’s popularity grew. ‘The plan was always to build an actual space, so these pop-ups gave me a means to get more experience, which I definitely needed since I was pretty green in the realms of programming and projection,’ says Hicks.
Hicks initially balanced his filmmaking day job with running The Nickel, before dropping everything to focus on the project. ‘You have to be a bit mad to try to pull off something like this, but I would have died trying.’
He launched a fundraiser with a target of £10,000, ending up on nearly £15,000 and added confidence that Londoners bought into his vision for a cult cinema. ‘It created pressure that if I had failed to deliver, I probably would have had to leave the country!’
Happily, with some help from The Scala’s Jane Giles and other cinema veterans, and a crash course in cinema programming – Hicks watched more than 420 films in 12 months to prepare – he hasn’t had to flee the land: The Nickel Cinema is now officially open. Week one was a sell out.
Inside the cinema, lobby walls are adorned with vinyl records, VHS tapes and film reels. The reels are a recent addition, with roughly 60 prints in The Nickel’s growing collection including A Clockwork Orange, Kiss Me Deadly and King Kong, alongside films that have never been released on other formats, like ’70s neo-noir curio The Nickel Ride. This includes the first reel Hicks ever bought, 1976’s Charles Bronson western From Noon Till Three. ‘We’re showing at least one film print a week,’ promises Hicks. Projecting film is no easy task – a screening of The Conversation at The Cinema Museum saw the film burn up during the projection. ‘The people there probably thought we were doing some kind of Secret Cinema experience!’
This is what local cinemas used to feel like before multiplexes
The cinema’s seats are saved from the now-closed Odeon Covent Garden, adding to the sense that the Nickel is an act of defiance in the depressing era of landlords shuttering iconic cinemas all over London, including Curzon Mayfair and even the Prince Charles Cinema. ‘We get told that cinema is finished, but it’s just not true,’ says Nicks. ‘London has an extremely active cinephile culture. It feels like we’re seeing a reversal back to what local cinemas used to feel like before multiplexes.’
There are big ambitions for The Nickel Cinema’s first year. Hicks wants regular attendees to programme their own events, and hopes to have famous film fans like Alice Lowe or Stewart Lee introducing their favourite body horrors or Italian crime flicks. When construction on the downstairs bar is complete, there’ll be workshops for aspiring filmmakers on everything from acting and directing to cinematography. Movie marathons are also on the cards. An ‘All Day Mystery Horror’ marathon is planned for Halloween.
You’ll rock up knowing the film will be something you won’t forget
The dream is to create a communal hub for film fans, bringing interaction and connection back to the cinema space. ‘There are bars you go to because they play music you’ve never heard of, but you know you’ll like,’ says Hicks. ‘We need something like that for cinema – where you don’t even bother to look, you just rock up knowing it’ll be something you haven’t seen but you won’t forget.’
The Nickel is stepping perfectly into part of the big gap left by the legendary The Scala cinema. It could just be that beacon of all things cult, exploitation and underground for a new generation.
Find The Nickel at 117-119 Clerkenwell Rd, EC1R 5BY. Follow the cinema on Instagram here.
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