Current
Today, the street is the centre of London's gay community. In the middle of Soho, it features several gay bars, restaurants and cafés, as well as a popular theatre. Whilst a pedestrianisation project proved unpopular with local traders and was reversed, the street is closed to vehicular traffic for the Soho Pride festival one weekend each year, in late summer. The street also is home to some of Soho's most popular sex shops Clonezone, Soho Original Books and Janus.
The Prince Edward Theatre is located on the east end of the street. Until 2004, the long-running production of Mamma Mia!, a musical based upon the songs of ABBA was showing at the theatre. When Mamma Mia! moved to larger premises in another part of the West End, a production of Mary Poppins moved in but closed in 2008. It's now home to Jersey Boys - a play about the lives of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons. London producer and director Adam Spreadbury-Maher lives on the northern end of Old Compton Street.
In 1999 the Admiral Duncan pub was the site of a nail bomb attack which killed three people and injured over a dozen. A neo-nazi, David Copeland, was subsequently found guilty of the bombing (intended specifically to injure members of the gay community). Previously decorated in neutral colours, the Admiral Duncan was re-opened with a flamboyant pink and purple exterior with a large gay pride rainbow flag flying outside, which has remained there ever since, in defiance of Westminster City Council's planning permission laws.
Along the street are numerous other gay bars, including Comptons of SOHO and G-A-Y bar. Also on the street are a variety of cafés, tea rooms (including the original branch of the renowned Patisserie Valerie chain) and restaurants (including Bincho, London's only authentic yakitori restaurant, and Balans, which unusually for much of England is open 24 hours a day), and a variety of sex shops. Old Compton Street is also the home of some of London's film and video post-production houses.
An interesting local feature can be found in the middle of Charing Cross Road at its junction with Old Compton Street. Beneath the grill in the traffic island in the middle of the road, can be seen the old road signs for the now vanished Little Compton Street, which once joined Old Compton Street with New Compton Street.
Read more about this topic: Old Compton Street
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