Disturbing and confused reports from Nottingham where a cinema has been found empty. Laurence Duncombe takes up the story:
I am an Usher at the Coronet Cinema in Beeston. We’ve been having a small-scale festival of cinema classics, nothing fancy, just a few prints of gems from the world repertoire, in the opinion of Conor Griffiths who teaches film history at the University. I hadn’t heard of most of them except Chinatown. But I’m getting off the point. We had an all-dayer; four films running back-to-back from 10.30 for £12 which is pretty good value considering you’d pay at least £12 for one film on new release in that London. But I’m drifting again. So anyway it’s not a massive seller but we’re a good cinema town in Beeston and there are a few aficionados who like a bit of the black & white classics. I would say we had about 25 in which is not bad midweek. You can come and go with the £12. I counted them in. Couple of them left after the first movie. Four or five would pop out to use the facilities or get a Fanta. But then it went pretty quiet. I didn’t think much of it until the projectionist went up to put the third film on and he comes down to me and he says Conor, he says, they’ve all scarpered and I say rubbish they have, and he says, I’m not pulling your leg, they’ve all gone, look, and he opens the door and I get my usher’s torch and sure enough the second film is still playing away but there’s no one in the seats. I swear to you not more than 3 people left while I was out there. They could have all gone out of the fire escape but that’s not likely since the alley behind the cinema is not Beeston’s finest and why wouldn’t they come back through the foyer? We had it repainted in 2010.
More disappearances? YES.
Is the government listening? NO.
Will yours truly continue to shout from the rooftops about this scandal? YES I WILL.
Will the Coronet Cinema reschedule their Ingmar Bergman all-dayer? NOT VERY LIKELY BUT I”LL ASK.
Don’t lose heart. Don’t lose hope.
They Aren’t Gone. #TAG2012
