Odeon cross-section

One of those things that we forgot to blog about in the run-up to the festival - a cross-section illustration of the Odeon Leicester Square, from Modern Wonder vol.3 no.58 (25 June 1938):

This was published the year after Odeon's flagship cinema opened. Although some of the architects involved felt that the building itself was a bit of a let-down, this drawing gives you a fair idea of the interior's wow factor. The illustrator was Leslie Ashwell Wood, later responsible for many of the cutaways of cruise-ships and space rockets in Eagle comics. Author Steve Holland has done an impressive amount of research into Ashwell Wood, and gathered some of it at his Bear Alley blog.