Talking pictures

When was the last time you watched a film at a cinema?

I still go, occasionally, because I do think most films have more of an impact on a big screen, but I’m not a huge fan of modern multiplexes.

Also, the idea of a ‘big’ screen is relative these days unless you go to an IMAX cinema, which we very rarely do.

The first IMAX feature film I saw was Fantasia 2000 which isn’t surprising because it was the ‘first ever feature film presented in IMAX’.

The most recent was Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, in 2017. I don’t think there were many in between. I vaguely remember seeing one of the Batman films at an IMAX in Glasgow, but that’s about it.

Today, though, even IMAX screens aren’t the giant size I remember, unless it’s somewhere like the BFI cinema at the Elephant and Castle in London which is said to be taller than four stacked London buses.

When I was a small child the nearest cinema (of any size) was in Maidenhead, where we lived for six years from 1963 to 1969.

As was normal then, the cinema was huge in comparison to most cinemas today. There was a single, genuinely large, screen and the auditorium was like a theatre, with stalls and a dress circle or balcony.

Many of those old cinemas were subsequently demolished or converted into something else - a bingo hall, perhaps, or, decades later, a Wetherspoons pub.

Some kept their cinema status but were redeveloped with the single large auditorium replaced with a number of smaller auditoriums with screens of diminishing size, each one able to show a different film - and so the concept of the multiplex was born.

Back in the day some older cinemas were referred to as ‘flea pits’, although the only genuine flea pit I ever experienced was in Derby in the early Eighties. Thinking about it still gives me the urge to scratch!

The last cinema I went to that had an old style auditorium with theatre style stalls and balcony was The Coronet in Notting Hill.

According to Wikipedia, it opened as a theatre in 1898. In 1916 it screened its first films, becoming a full-time cinema in 1923.

The original capacity was 1,143, which dropped to 1,010 when it became a cinema. Thereafter the number of seats gradually fell, for a variety of reasons.

Initially only the theatre boxes were removed, but in 1950 the upper tier (above the dress circle) was closed, which reduced the capacity to 515 (196 in the dress circle, 319 in the stalls).

Ownership changed hands at least twice before a proposal to demolish the building in the early Seventies was challenged on architectural grounds and it survived.

Thwarted, Rank sold it in 1977 to an independent cinema operator who ‘replaced the seating in the stalls to provide more legroom, reducing the total cinema capacity to 399 seats … In 1996, a second screen with seating for 151 was opened in the stage area’.

In 2004, the Coronet was purchased by a local Pentecostal church but ‘continued to offer mainstream independent cinema programming’.

Ten years later however it was bought by a theatre company and reverted to its original purpose, and name - The Coronet Theatre.

I mention the Coronet because when I started working for Forest in January 1999 we had yet to sell our house in Scotland, so for the first five months I travelled to and from London each week whilst renting a single room in a town house in … Notting Hill.

The Coronet was a five or ten-minute walk from the house and my brief acquaintance with the area coincided with the release of (you’ve guessed) Notting Hill starring Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant.

Naturally, I watched it at The Coronet, seated in the old dress circle, and even if the film is a bit cheesy it was great fun to see the local neighbourhood on the big screen.

Back in the Sixties, when I was a small child, the films that made the biggest impression on me were Doctor Who and the Daleks (with Peter Cushing), Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, and The Jungle Book.

My parents rarely went to the cinema on their own, although I remember them going to see the latest Bond movie (probably Thunderball in 1965), leaving my sister and me with babysitters.

After we moved to Scotland at the end of the Sixties I don’t remember ever going to the cinema as a family, or even with friends.

I remember seeing Mary, Queen of Scots, featuring Glen Jackson as Elizabeth I, but that was with my history class at school.

The cinema, The New Picture House, was a short walk from the school in the centre of St Andrews.

Opened in 1933, it was purchased a year ago by a consortium including Tiger Woods and is due to reopen later this year as a sports bar.

In the late Seventies, after my parents moved to Cumbria, I remember seeing 2001 Space Odyssey - several years after its original release - at a tiny cinema in Windermere. (Have I ever been tempted to watch it again? No.)

Around that time (1979) I also saw Monty Python’s Life of Brian at the Capitol cinema (another old theatre) in Aberdeen. It’s hard to describe just what a wonderful, and funny, occasion it was - a full house, rocking with laughter.

Arguably it’s the best experience I’ve ever had at a cinema, matched only by Back to the Future at the Odeon, Leicester Square, in 1986. (The sequels let it down, but the original, seen for the first time, was incredibly entertaining.)

I remember too seeing For Your Eyes Only in the week of its release in 1981. It’s a distinctly average Bond film but the Odeon in Leicester Square was sold out and there was a fantastic (dare I say, patriotic) atmosphere.

The original art deco auditorium had 2,116 seats; today, although it’s the largest single-screen cinema in the UK, there are only 800.

This year I’ve seen three films on the ‘big’ screen, each one at the new Everyman cinema in Cambridge.

The first I can’t remember. (Literally. My mind’s a blank.)

The second, Black Bag with Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender, was brilliant - one of the best, most stylish films I’ve seen in years with a great ensemble cast and a sizzling, pulsating soundtrack.

The third, The Salt Path with Gillian Anderson and Jeremy Isaacs, had a short run in cinemas last month.

Filmed in Cornwall, it’s based on a book, a true story about a couple made homeless after losing their life savings following an investment that went disastrously wrong.

With nowhere to live they decide to walk the South West coastal path, a distance of 600 miles. Oh, and the husband (played by Jeremy Isaacs) had been diagnosed with a debilitating disease that impaired his mobility.

Like the walk itself I found it a bit hard going, but it was well reviewed and is predicted to drive even more tourists to Cornwall.

I’m not so sure. The South West coastal trail can be beautiful but it’s often steep and rugged, and the weather (as the film demonstrated) can leave a lot to be desired.

As I know from first-hand experience, Cornwall out-of-season is often windswept and bleak. As for the picturesque fishing villages, they are lovely but over-crowded for much of the year.

Finally, while we’re on the subject, I do love an Everyman cinema.

They don’t offer the ‘big screen’ experience of my youth, but now I’m in my sixties I appreciate the significantly greater comfort (and legroom).

As it happens, the best cinema experience I’ve had in recent years was at the Tivoli in Bath, which has since been purchased by the Everyman chain.

We found ourselves in the smallest of three auditoriums. It was called the Director’s Lounge and it was like attending a luxurious private screening. I loved it.

PS. You can probably tell that my taste in films is strictly mainstream.

That said, I have zero interest in seeing any Marvel/Avenger type film, and don’t get me started on films that are three hours or longer.

In general, no film should be more than two hours.

For example, I’ve watched From Russia With Love so many times I couldn’t even guess the number.

The running time is one hour 55 minutes.

Skyfall and No Time To Die (two of the three most recent Bond movies) are two hours 23 minutes and two hours 43 minutes respectively.

Neither are bad films but repeat viewings? Not for me.

Likewise, Mission: Impossible (1996) was one hour 50 minutes. But Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (2025) was two hours and 50 minutes.

Even in the comfort of an Everyman cinema, life’s too short.