“No point looking sheepish, darling,” says the usherette, fixing you with a sharp look. “Come downstairs. But remember – looking only, no touching.” Strange things are afoot behind the art-deco facade of the Rio cinema in east London. In the basement, amid the heating pipes and fuse boxes, a tiny cinematic wonderland has sprung up: antique movie posters, flickering silvery shadows on the walls.
In one sideroom, a girl sits watching Josephine Baker, an expression of grave concentration on her face. In another, decorated with adverts for films with titles such as Dr Sex (“Strictly ADULTS only”), a young couple appear to be getting to know each other rather well.
Over the last few years, social charity The Big House has been making a reputation for itself with collaborative theatre projects. The actors, none of them professionals, are young people who have recently been in care; the dramas they create draw from their own words and experiences. Phoenix (2013) told the story of Latitia, a 16-year-old care-leaver fighting to make her own way, and finding that care is the one thing the world can’t offer her.
Electric, 75 minutes long and directed by Big House founder Maggie Norris, is billed as an immersive tour through the history – and the bowels – of Hackney’s oldest working cinema. It’s a fine idea, and throws up plenty of gems: the Rio is my local, and despite countless visits I had no idea the place was founded in 1909 by a Jewish emigrant auctioneer, Clara Ludski, still less that in the 1970s it housed both blue movies and a radical feminist collective, albeit separately. Many of these characters spring to life and accost us as we patrol the dark and musty cellars. (Claustrophobics might want to think twice before booking.) Interwoven with the historical scenes is the story of a young woman, tellingly called Faith, striving to escape a tangled past; in Joan Crawford’s troubled antiheroine Mildred Pierce she finds an image of salvation.
The 18-strong cast radiate verve and enthusiasm, and there are some terrific cameos – James Hogarth’s gauchely tentative projectionist deserves an award, and Henrietta Imoreh offers touching tenderness as Faith (there’s a covetable showdown, too, between a sharkish estate agent and a hallelujahing Pentecostal church party bent on buying the cinema).
The weak link is Andrew Day’s script, which races to cover all the bases – Faith’s backstory and future, cinematic history, revenge porn, the gentrification of east London – and has what can only be described as a nervous breakdown en route. Enjoyable as Electric is, you can’t help wondering what these talented performers could do with material that has real spark.
• At the Rio cinema, London, until 12 December. Box office: 020-7241 9410.
