Cinema showing diverse range of films, with great accessibility and extremely helpful staff
5
5
Date of visit: January 2017
I have experience of challenges around: moving around
Overall Rating
Excellent
Cinema complex showing a diverse range of films, from contemporary, screen classics, foreign language films to special events and film festivals. There's a café/ bar. The venue is located on London's Southbank.
Disabled Access In and Around
Excellent
The building is on different levels and can appear a little confusing to navigate on a first visit. The main entrance near to Belvedere Road has stairs or a wheelchair accessible platform lift and from this you arrive at the main foyer where the ticket office, shop and bar/café is. From the riverside there's a steps free entrance into the riverside bar/ café and NFT 1, which is their largest cinema screen. There are stairs, usually a short flight/ lifts between different levels of the building. There are 4 screens all of which have wheelchair spaces.
Parking & Transport
Excellent
I travelled by public transport. The nearest tube is Waterloo. Several buses stop nearby on Waterloo Bridge but there is a set of stairs to walk down. However the RV1 bus stops nearer to the entrance and exiting here avoids the stairs.
Accessible Toilets
Excellent
There are 4 disabled accessible toilets located throughout the building so you don't have to go very far to find one. The toilets are spacious, with grab rails and alarms. I go to the BFI a couple of times a month and sometimes the emergency cords don't reach the floor, on my most recent visit the cord had been wrapped round the grab rail and don't reach the floor and I asked staff if they could put a notices in the toilets to explain the importance of the cord needing to reach the ground.
Staff
Excellent
The staff are brilliant and very helpful. The BFI was the 1st place I visited after I had my fall, last year, and I was still very immobile. I had phoned up as I was nervous about going out again and the staff could not have been more helpful or reassuring. When I arrived at the box office they helped me to the accessible toilet and waited outside. They then took me a different entrance to my screen so I remained on the one level. They saw me to my seat and then the usher at the main entrance to the screen brought me a copy of the screen notes and told me he would return at the end of the film. He did and I was very wobbly but he was very patient and helped me up and escorted me out of the building.
Additional Information
The BFI is a really cool place to visit, they show a wonderful range of films and their location on London's Southbank is fantastic and their disability awareness is excellent.
