ODEON South Woodford

Does the trick but the screens are small and the prices are high. Happy to support local but you do pay the price of old which isn’t at all gold!

The worst movie theatre I have ever been to in my entire life. I was at screen seven. Save your money and go literally anywhere else - even the abysmal Vue cinema in Stratford is better than this Odean. I was in the premium section, and the seats were the most uncomfortable I have ever sat on. Zero cushioning and no movement of the seats so you can't tilt back. Hard as rocks. The lights didn't turn off at the start of the film, so I missed the first minute or so because I had to walk down three flights of stairs to tell someone to turn off the lights. They claimed that the cleaners had accidentally left the lights on. The bathrooms are disgusting, and it seems like no cleaning is actually done in the place. How this place is still open is astonishing. What in the world.

I'll probably get shot down in flames and branded disablist for this review but I have to question the wisdom of allowing care workers with a group of adults with serious mental impairments and little awareness of their surroundings into the screen long after the film had started. What followed was an hour and a half of shouting, banging on partition walls, kicking seats and various noises and ticks which ruined the performance for everyone else in the cinema. People from three different rows walked out and finally when the group left half an hour before the end of the film it was pointless by now anyway after an hour and a half of constant noise, banging and disruption. Yes everyone deserves quality of life and access to entertainment, but when the people concerned clearly have no idea what they are even looking at and don't have the capacity to appreciate it anyway then perhaps a cinema is not the appropriate environment. The care workers should have known this wasn't going to end well and cinema staff could have prevented it by not allowing such late access to films once a film has already started so that people already watching are not disrupted. I now have to pay a second time to go back and watch the film so that I can actually enjoy it without all the banging and shouting.

Review is based on the experience we had on the 8th of March. Viewing of Mob Marley at 1.30pm. Great little odeon, made even better by the customer service we had received by a young man on the food counter. Made our visit even more special by friendliness and politeness. It’s just a shame we didn’t catch his name! Thank you

I took my dad and daughter to watch one love today, my dad is a wheelchair user, every member of staff we met were lovely, the door was opened for us on arrival and departure and we were shown to our seats, We were asked if we enjoyed the the movie on the way out, I was very apprehensive about taking my dad to t he cinema as he hasn't been for it very 50 years. It was a very enjoyable experience. Thank you.