It’s Friday night; the first promise of Spring has lulled us into wearing light overcoats then betrayed us with a kiss of freezing wind. The Woman Of A Certain Age keeps me waiting a little longer than I’d like, so I’m standing outside the Odeon in Muswell Hill. Anybody who has ever arranged to meet me knows I’m not a waiter-insider no matter how cold it gets.
We order hot chocolate from the foyer kiosk and wander
upstairs to the main screen. There, a small man greets us warmly and reaches
for our tickets with his one good arm, the other twisted up against his chest.
“Sit where you like’, he says. “Nobody else will be coming
tonight.” We sit in the general
seating area.
“No, not there” he tells us. “Sit there, those two seats.
The sound’s better there.” W e can’t yet check on this as there’s no sound to
listen to. “I’ll be back in a minute, just going to check on something.” And off he goes down the steps,
dragging one leg a little as he does.
He comes back and beams as he tells us that he’s checked
with the booking office and there’ll be only another five or six people in. So
he invites us to sit anywhere we like – not in the one-and-nines, but how about
the Premier seats that have extra-large armrests and tip back a little?
We’re not about to refuse a free upgrade, and he’s good
enough to let slip that the really expensive seats, the double-sofa jobs at the
front, are really not very good and have hardly any legroom compared with these
seats, the seats he’s pointing to with his one good arm.
“This is lovely” we say, making necessary conversation until
something happens on screen – trailers, Coke adverts, those irritating quizzes
– to stop all three of us from talking.
I start on about the beauty of the cinema itself. It’s a
wonderful building, the Muswell Hill Odeon; one of the last of the 1930s Art
Deco picture palaces, not yet carved up too badly into twenty-seat
mini-cinemas, with sweeping lines that draw the eye down toward the screen.
“Say something” he says. “Say something loud”. I don’t need
telling twice, so I let out a tentative yelp.
It rolls around the auditorium, bouncing back from the
screen and somehow gaining in volume, until it burst back at me.
“Bloody hell.”
“Yeah!” He and
I grin at each other, and spend a minute or two competing with hollers and Cab
Calloway-style Hi-de-hoes – it’s only fitting, given the surroundings – until
we’re standing at opposite ends of the front row, leaning over the rail,
whooping together into the empty space in front of us.
Eventually The Woman Of A Certain Age tells us that we
should, despite her enjoyment of this childishness, knock it off. Besides,
another couple have come in and our new friend really ought to do for them what
he did for us.
So he does, but without the acoustic adventure, and we all
settle back into being typical cinema-goers.
The film is excellent. A skeletal Matthew McConaughey is all
nose and cheekbones and impenetrable accent; at times, the sound, obviously
mixed to be absorbed by a full audience of actual people, sounds cotton-woolly
and indistinct. Having to concentrate on what he says doesn’t detract from his
performance; rather it enhances your immersion in his character’s situation.
Everybody leaves except us; I like to read at least the
first half of the credit roll, and more so for a film which has no opening
credits except a title card. A small shock at seeing Jennifer Garner’s name:
I’d not recognised her, but then I know her mainly for Elektra, which she’d
probably rather not be recognised for.
We make our way downstairs: there’s no sign of the usher.
It’s a pity, I tell The Woman Of A Certain Age; I’d like to thank him.
As we get to the last doors before we head out into the
March cold and a take-away from Toffs, he’s there, tidying the foyer. I offer
my hand, realise his good hand is holding a broom, and not knowing what best to
do, pat him on the shoulder.
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