The Regents Centre

To celebrate my impulsive, yet long delayed, decision to leave work, we chose to visit the local cinema. As with all things ‘local’, it had been bugging me for a while. Why, if it had been so local, I always chose to drive four miles to go to my ‘not so local’ cinema. I guess my justification was the old saying “You don’t always appreciate things that are on your own doorstep”. Well that was true, after all. I hated answering the door to the gas man knowing full well I didn’t have a clue where my gas meter was. And I hated those flyers that offered affordable plumbing and friendly service.

Then I started to realise why I hadn’t been to my local cinema before. The Regents centre actively prided itself on its latest cinema showing. Their latest offering was ‘The Wedding Crashers’, premiering three months late. Not only was there only one cinema, it turned out that it was a multipurpose, bingo, cum cinema, cum theatre all in one. It was just fortunate that this week, before I complained too much about the out of date films, that I had got the cinema week, not Andrea Duffell, and her Watercolours, oils & paintings on velvet show.

The cinema looked like some retro bingo hall, décor and style to match the old lady upstairs living room. There was that smell of old people. What that ‘old people’ smell was I don’t actually know, but a mixture of cheap perfume, fur balls and that stale clothing smell that hits you when you walk into your local branch of Oxfam. If it looked like some old Bingo Hall, it’s probably because it was….. an old Bingo Hall. Opening in 1931, it was the hub of social activity at the time. Couples would go there to watch films, have a hundred dates then get married. As I walked down the lobby, I could hardly contain myself with the news on the poster to my right - “On 20th February, we will re-open with a new coffee bar, new box office and a new colour scheme!” . I couldn’t help but think it was some sophisticated cunning psychological marketing plan, who could resist not seeing the new sherry flavoured wall colour?

We purchased out tickets, not via bar-coded computer technology, but a sophisticated roll system, which involved an eighty three year old part time volunteer behind the wooden counter carefully separating the tickets. She did it as if her life depended on it, with so much precision. There was no queue. There were no huge stands tempting you with super size cartons of so much ice it tastes like water anyway coke. The probably too salty but better than the too sweet popcorn was noticeable by its absence. All that remained was a tuck shop like counter with a selection of tuck shop like sweets and a little freezer holding little tubs of ice cream. It reminded me of camp when I was younger, the times when, from out of nowhere, a mobile tuck shop would appear. Thankfully, unlike then, I no longer had the dilemma of whether to spend my last twenty pence in the whole wide world on a Mr Freeze or two Curly Wurlies. And they say you don’t have important decisions to make when you are younger.

“You can sit anywhere you like” came the voice from the third over eighties member of volunteer staff. The worry was not about finding your seat. It was about finding what seat you wanted. They were all empty. The attendants were smartly dressed in a maroon uniform, complete with matching gold name badge for assistance (as if you needed help, all the seats were empty). Just as I was taking my seat I was wondering how they would deal with popcorn throwing behaviour, teenage swearing, mobile phones going off and mis-behaviour. As I nestled down on my wooden chair I answered my own question. Not only were the staff all over the age of eighty, but most of the sparse crowd were over eighty. Somehow, I didn’t think trouble would be on the cards. Only a little overexcited gossip about who was doing afternoon tea that week and why Mavis wasn’t at church the previous Sunday.

Watching a certificate fifteen film in a cinema like this made me feel slightly uneasy. It was like watching a programme after the nine o’clock watershed with you parents. There would always be a risk, however small, of the odd naked bottom, use the word ‘Fuck’ or reference to anything controversial that you knew would make people uncomfortable. For a minute, there was lingering thought. Why were there so many old people here to watch this comedy? Had they got it confused with some romantic black and white wedding film? Would they walk on the first ‘fuck’ or the second ‘fuck’. Or would they just tut?

The wooden chairs reminded me of sitting at church for thirty minutes, creating a numbing pain that was temporarily lifted by a few shifts around the wood. There was no popcorn throwing, just the expected old person comment. I guessed that’s what I loved about old people, the ability to say things to try and avoid an embarrassing situation. The scene involved some extensive ‘trouser rubbing’, some groans. In true old people fashion, instead of focusing on the rather sexual act for their eighty year old eyes, one woman behind me turned to the other and said “Joyce, isn’t that lovely timber in that house, reminds me of Mary’s at number forty two.

The lights came on. The end of a shift for the volunteers. Maybe I would come back in three weeks. Not out of choice. That was when the next film was showing.