Every time you go to the cinema you're bombarded with tie-in ads for mobile phones - but one in particular, for O2, stood out for me because it finished with a huge picture of the Odeon on Holloway Road.
While this imposing building does indeed look like a classic "picture palace", regular customers might hesitate before using it to represent all that is great about going to the flicks.
The audience, you see, isn't always entirely quiet. Friends report that a showing of The Exorcist was scarcely improved by a girl in the audience repeating everything that happened on screen "but slightly wrong so when Ellen Burstyn first goes into the attic and her lamp flares, scaring her, the girl went 'oh my God, there's a big dog in the attic with her'."
Then there was the screening of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang where so many people were screaming and running up and down that three separate customers went and complained. Unfortunately, just after the offenders were ejected, the projector broke down.
To some people, the cinema's darkness encourages less than wholesome behaviour. The Odeon in Wardour Street, now closed, seemed to be entirely populated by the dirty mac brigade, enjoying a repertoire permanently situated at the pervier end of the mainstream.
The worst ever, though, happened to a viewer who went to see the Dennis Cooper adaptation Frisk at London's ICA. "Halfway through the film I realised the old man behind me was masturbating. He eventually ejaculated over my shoulder missing me completely (thank God) but hitting the back of the person in front. I sat through the rest of the film wondering if I should say something to him."
What other cinemas are best avoided if you just want to enjoy the film?
