LET’S GO TO THE PICTURES
My local cinema’s not looking bad for over 100 years old, of course it didn’t always show films, and it only started showing films again in the last few years, it’s good to see it back as it was. The Park and Dare Theatre, funded by the miners of the Parc and Dare collieries by ‘Penny in the Pound’ wage contributions. The main auditorium was added to the original building in 1913, it is an Edwardian style theatre that was adapted to show films when their popularity began to grow in the 1920s. The theatre has hosted many performers and musicians who have played there include Ray Davies, Nils Lofgren, Eric Bibb, Billy Bragg, Courtney Pine, Michael Ball, Sir Harry Secombe, Ken Dodd; as well as dance, musicals, alternative nights and community events. It was even invaded by Daleks in 2006, when the theatre was used to stand in for 1950s Broadway, the Doctor Who two-part episode ‘Daleks in Manhattan & Evolution of the Daleks’ was filmed there. Everyone who grows up in the Upper Rhondda will have fond memories of the place, recently watching The Force Awakens I thought of the people – probably mine and my friends’ parents – watching the original Star Wars there. I remember watching so many films, so many blockbusters and modern classics there. Jurassic Park, Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, Hook, all memorable; also memorable but for different reason are Home Alone 2 (a full house so we had to sit in ‘the Gods’) and My Girl (there was crying involved). At the height of its popularity, in my childhood, there would be queues reaching around the corner to the main road (The Lost World: Jurassic Park ‘2’).
It was so good to see the auditorium full again, when watching The Lady in the Van there. The majority of the audience was grey-haired, it was a movie written by Alan Bennett after all, but this is how I remember and like to think about the Park and Dare. These older film goers are not catered to in the multiplexes – of course they do go to them – but the bright lights, multi-coloured sweets, and even the sound bleed that happens between screens is something that is aimed at, and wouldn’t annoy, adolescent movie watchers. I recently went to see The Danish Girl in a multiplex, and the sound from what I assume was Star Wars could be heard through the walls – that can’t happen in an independent cinema with only one screen.
And now the contentious point: the expense. It’s widely agreed that the price of cinema tickets is too high these days, combined with the price of DVDs it’s also the partially why there’s so much online downloading . This is why, apart from community reasons, we need to keep our independent cinemas. The recently opened Premiere Cinema in Cardiff’s Capitol centre is a good thing, with its policy of £4 tickets all day and every day, it has even brought down ticket prices in nearby cinemas. Vue brought their tickets down to £4, and Cineworld has reduced theirs from around £8 to £6. On the other hand tickets in Showcase Nantgarw and Vue Merthyr are still charging nearly £10 a ticket. They know they can do this because the other option is travelling all the way to Cardiff. The Park and Dare (and The Coliseum in Aberdare) is literally around the corner for local people, charging £5.70 (£3.40 for children etc) a ticket – a price I personally don’t mind paying because of the nostalgia, and it keeps my childhood cinema from going the same way as Pontypridd’s The Muni. Watching a film in a theatre which has 100 years of history, where people probably watched Chaplin’s comedies in the 1920s, makes multiplexes feel pretty soulless.
words CHRIS WILLIAMS