Renoir to Curzon Bloomsbury: a rebranding too far

It would be an exaggeration to say that a part of me died when I heard that London's lovely Renoir cinema is soon to be known as the Curzon Bloomsbury, but it certainly made me wince. This is one of the capital's smartest venues: a plush two-screener run by the Artificial Eye group and specialising in foreign-language releases.

It opened as the Renoir in 1986, though it had been operational as a cinema, under various names, since its launch as the Bloomsbury Cinema in 1972. When I first went there in 1987, to see Lasse Hallström's My Life as a Dog, I marvelled at its place in the cradle of the otherwise desolate Brunswick Centre, which resembled the sort of labyrinthine estate through which Regan and Carter of The Sweeney might routinely pursue teenage roister-doisters and leather-faced lags. This setting seemed only to underline the Renoir's air of undemonstrative sophistication. Things are different now. The Renoir is flanked on all sides by every coffee house and cafe franchise you can name short of Spud U Like, and so its imminent rebranding can't help but seem like a reflection of the encroaching homogeneity of the area.

Some filmgoers - by which I mean, specifically, me - have an emotional attachment to the names by which our picture palaces are known. Lucky old Brighton still has the Duke of York's, my favourite cinema in the UK, while Manchester has its Cornerhouse, Glasgow its Film Theatre, and so on. But in London, the Renoir is one of the last of a soon-to-be-extinct breed which doesn't advertise any commercial interests in its name. In a world of interchangeable Cineworlds, Odeons and Showcases, it is more important than ever for a cinema to hang on to its individuality.

This might manifest itself, as in the case of the Renoir, in bearing the name of an inspirational film-maker, the connection bestowing some additional reflected glory on to the cinema. Until 10 years ago, the Renoir was kept company by another venue named for one of the art form's innovators - the much-missed Lumière in St Martin's Lane, which boasted an auditorium so vast that its front and back rows were in different time zones.

My reluctance to see the Renoir absorbed into the Curzon brand is no reflection on that company's capabilities. After all, it has under its wing such cherished London sites as the Curzon Soho and the adorable Richmond Filmhouse - relaunched today as the Curzon Richmond, though we'll allow the group the benefit of the doubt over that one and assume that it's to avoid any confusion with the Picturehouse chain. And neither should my objections to the renaming be seen as a curmudgeonly aversion to change. I'm flexible: do I not refer cheerfully and without complaint to Opal Fruits as Starburst? Jif as Cif? Puff Daddy as whatever he happens to be calling himself today?

But I feel I will be betraying the Renoir if I go along with this whole Curzon Bloomsbury nonsense, which prizes branding over individuality. It's bad enough that London has lost some of its most idiosyncratic cinemas in the last 20 years. Places such as the Minema in Knightsbridge, for instance, a venue so tiny that Maltesers could only be sold individually, and where the ushers were fitted out with miners' helmets because there wasn't room to wave a torch. Or the Academy in Oxford Street, which had such a fabulously highfalutin air that patrons were asked to bring their PhDs rather than their credit cards to the box office. Or the Scala, where images of depraved sexual activity on the screen could not compete with the goings-on in the rear stalls.

I've just about come to terms with the fact that the colourful cinemagoing possibilities of my youth have declined, at least in London. But the rebranding of the Renoir seems a petty strike against the unfashionable notion that cinemas should be allowed to establish and retain their own identities. I'm sure the Renoir's professionalism and high-calibre programming won't disappear along with its name, but some of its personality can't help but be lost. Anyone for a petition? A candle-lit vigil? An open-air screening of La Grande Illusion in Brunswick Square?

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