Award Winning Independent Cinema

Helen Tope reviews Downton Abbey, showing in our cinema until Thursday 17 October. We also have a Bringing in Baby screening on Wednesday 16! A world of elegance and charm, Downton Abbey makes the leap to the big screen with comparative ease. We join the Crawleys as a letter is delivered. The Royal Family – King George V and Queen Mary – will be stopping over at Downton during a tour. It’s one night to impress, and put on a show. It’s what Downton does best. But as the preparations begin, feathers are ruffled ... Continue Reading

Helen Tope reviews Notorious, showing in our cinema until Wednesday 9 October. 1946 was a very good year for film. The Big Sleep, Gilda and It’s a Wonderful Life, the medium was most definitely experiencing a post-war high. Among them sits Hitchcock’s dark thriller, Notorious. Set in Rio de Janeiro, Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant join forces to defeat a group of Nazis. This may sound about as subtle as a Rita Hayworth hair toss, but Hitchcock’s film about post-war anxiety and patriotism runs far deeper than first impressions might suggest. We meet Alicia Huberman (Bergman) as her German ... Continue Reading

Helen Tope reviews Mrs Lowry and Son, showing in our cinema until Thursday 3 October.  Filmed with a lightness of touch, Mrs Lowry and Son is a delicate portrait of a complex and deeply troubled relationship. LS Lowry, whose works include Going to the March and Coming from the Mill, lived with his mother Elizabeth until her death in 1939. We join them five years earlier. Living in a terraced house in Pendlebury, tensions emerge right from the start. Mrs Lowry identifies herself as firmly middle-class. We learn that the Lowrys started life as a family in a plush ... Continue Reading

Helen Tope reviews Vita and Virginia, showing one last time in our cinema on Tuesday 10 September at 6pm.  Based on her 1992 play, Eileen Atkins brings her one-woman show to the screen. The story of how Virginia Woolf meets Vita Sackville West should be an easy sell. It has everything to pique our interest: desire, lust and betrayal. But what Atkins’ passion project gives us is a lesson in the language of cinema. Meeting in 1922 at a costume party, a mutual fascination between the two writers begins. The aristocratic, sexually-expressive Vita, and the shy, self-conscious Virginia ... Continue Reading

Helen Tope reviews Tucked, showing in our cinema until Wednesday 31 July. Set in Brighton, Tucked tells the story of an unlikely friendship. Jackie is a 74-year-old drag queen, the star turn at a local club. His set features jokes – the ruder the better – and he works the audience like a charm. Minus the wig, Jackie is trading on the classic techniques of stand-up. It is familiar, if risqué, and the audience can’t get enough. Starting her first night at the club, we meet 21-year-old Faith (Jordan Stephens). With a look that’s more Lady Gaga than ... Continue Reading

Regular blog contributor Helen Tope introduces us to The Birds, one of her favourite Hitchcock films, which will be screened at Tinside Lido on Sunday 25 August as part of our Open Air Cinema season.  It’s 1960, and director Alfred Hitchcock is riding high after his mega-hit, Psycho, terrifies audiences. He now has the unenviable task of following a hit with an even bigger one. He finds a short story, written by British novelist Daphne du Maurier. Working with screenwriter Evan Hunter, he develops a narrative that starts as a comedy, and descends into unimaginable horror. When ... Continue Reading

Helen Tope reviews Sometimes Always Never, showing in our cinema until Wednesday 24 July. Full of quirky detail, Sometimes Always Never begins with images scattered across the screen. Seventies décor, ornaments and games hint at an interior life, stuck firmly in the past. We meet Alan (Bill Nighy) standing on a beach, making arrangements on the phone with his son. Irate and resentful, Peter (played by Sam Riley) reluctantly meets his father on the beach-front. Their appointment, at a government building, is deferred, so they have to stay at a B&B overnight. In a set-up that feels very Wes ... Continue Reading