Your friendly independent, licensed, multiplex cinema in South London and home to the £5.99 cinema ticket.
About Peckhamplex Cinema
Peckhamplex is an independent, commercial, multiplex screening mainstream, independent, foreign language, and art house films at an affordable price of £5.99 all day, every day - probably London's cheapest cinema.
The cinema was converted from a branch of Sainsburys in 1994 and was acquired by the current owner/directors in 2010 who changed its name to Peckhamplex. They are Simone Brown (Managing Director), Rakesh Makhecha (Finance), Marianne Gray (Publicity) and John Reiss (Chairman).
For many young people each year Peckhamplex is their introduction to film on the big screen. Over the years we have built a large, loyal audience many visiting more than once weekly. Our audiences are large, of all ages with a large component from SE London, many arriving on foot but increasingly from across London attracted by affordability and improved transport links. We are popular with families, parties, students and film clubs. We have people bringing their grandchildren who came themselves as children. We hold weekly screenings for parents with babies, hearing impaired and monthly Autism friendly screenings and accept the UKCA carers card. Our audience, which is linked through a free friends scheme, has probably a unique ethnic mix of which we are proud and is reflected in the staff and board of directors.
We have hosted numerous premieres, event screenings and Q&As with directors, writers and actors who respond well to being close to a 'real' audience. Those who have visited include Olivia Colman, Ken Loach, Danny Dyer, Idris Elba, John Boyega, Catherine Tate, Matthew Bourne, Phil Davis and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. We are also a venue of choice for cast and crew screenings. We've hosted book launches for the autobiography of comedian and TV personality Mo Gilligan and the second novel of award-winning author Candice Carty-Williams.
We host many events such as Peckham and Nunhead Free Film Festival, the Young Filmmakers Competition, Peckham Festival and collaborate extensively with local schools. We've been the venue for freshers and graduation events and ceremonies for Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts and hosted the Urban Film festival awards night. We have participated in the London, French, Jewish, Feminist Cinema, and LGBTQ Festivals as well as Black History Month and the annual Short Comedy Festival. We've collaborated for many years with the Serpentine and South London Gallery and even welcomed the Lithuanian Ambassador for a special event.
As well as hosting events Peckhamplex is a popular venue for filming: features, shorts, music videos, YouTube and magazine shoots regularly take place before we open for customers.
The majority of our staff live locally. There is a mix of full and part time staff that are guaranteed minimum weekly hours. Many are students and others have other local day-time jobs. Wages are above the Living Wage and in good times all have been bonused multiple times per year. There is a long tradition of supporting our staff and their families through the ups and downs of life. We use local suppliers and trades wherever possible.
We play an active role in the local community supporting many charities financially and in kind. We were amongst the first contributors to crowd funding campaigns for local newspaper The Peckham Peculiar, for the Peckham Coal Line and Lido projects, and were a primary backer of The Peckham Festival. We have helped grow the local art and filmmaking scene, supporting and collaborating with Bold Tendencies, South London Gallery, and Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts where Peckhamplex's Chairman is also a trustee. Peckhamplex is sponsoring the Mountview Prize celebrating trailblazers who inspire social change. We work closely with the LB of Southwark.
We are the recipient of many awards including The Time Out Best Cinema Award repeated year after year. In 2016 we were awarded a Southwark Civic Award, the first time it was ever presented to an institution rather than an individual.
Apart from on Christmas days and the Covid lockdown we have never closed. We were inundated with warm messages from our customers during lock-down. We were awarded generous support from the DCMS Culture Recovery Fund and the London Borough of Southwark which enabled us to remain viable to continue providing a wide array of filmed entertainment at affordable prices forever.