Local Picturehouse dies. No one notices.

We often blithely talk about disruption, innovation and change as irreversible forces, and swap tales of the demise of Nokia, Blockbuster, Kodak, and Toys R Us. But now a wave of change is swamping theatrical cinema, and this time it feels more personal! Will cinema survive a world of streaming, social-media and nanosecond attention spans? If an Art Deco gem in a borough with some 400,000 residents can be shuttered, what hope for small towns, art-houses and niche theatres? The Picturehouse in Bromley was lovingly restored and when it reopened it had a vibrant kitchen/bar, a Bowie montage, quiz nights hosted by a local media celeb, and the promise of more to come. It’s now being shuttered with no real sense (anymore) of what a community would do with a well-kept theatrical space. The local theatre (council owned) is also up for sale and its future seems uncertain.

The Corona Lockdowns kicked the stuffing out of cinemas (and much else) and then the film studios themselves decided to engage a whole new germination of writers and producers who failed to tell compelling engaging stories, building gloomy narratives around identity politics and progressive themes, rather than making cinema a fun escape from the nonsense of day to day life. Whither Raiders, Top Gun, The Matrix or LOTR? Maybe only 'mega-screens' and iMax will survive? Queuing round the block in the 70's and 80's seems a hazy distant memory. I wrote before about that queuing experience for Star Wars outside the Odeon in Bradford (also now still boarded-up). Those were the worst of times, but maybe in their way, some of the best.