Central Hall Westminster, Storey’s Gate, SW1
On the west side of Parliament Square stands Central Hall Westminster, Storey’s Gate, opposite the entrance to Westminster Abbey. It’s here that Helen Mirren and Julie Walters find themselves unexpectedly addressing the National Federation of Women’s Institutes as they seek approval for their contentious fundraising project in Calendar Girls.
In 1981, Warren Beatty walked off with the Best Director Oscar for Reds, his epic story of American radicals Jack Reed (Beatty), the only non-Russian to have been interred in the Kremlin, and Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton). Playwright Trevor Griffiths was nominated for his script. The interior of Central Hall became the ‘St Petersburg’ post office, where Jack Reed sends increasingly frantic telegrams.
SS troops lounge in front of the Hall in the disturbing 1965 faux documentary of British life under Nazi occupation, It Happened Here.
Trivia: The 1912 building truly has witnessed major events in 20th century history: the Suffragettes, campaigning for the vote for women, met here in 1914; Gandhi spoke in the Lecture Hall in 1932; and General de Gaulle founded the Free French here in the early Forties. Central Hall was the venue for the very first General Assembly of the newly-formed United Nations in 1946.
Calendar Girls (2003, dir: Nigel Cole)
Reds (1981, dir: Warren Beatty)
It Happened Here (1966, dir: Kevin Brownlow, Andrew Mollo)
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