Visit the Called to the bar site

This is a Wetherspoons in Llandudno in North Wales. It is the Wetherspoons which was once a cinema. At the age of 14 I sat in the first tier of seats, possibly to the right, and watched Clockwork Orange (along with most of the 4th and 5th and 6th form). I also sat there and watched the Exorcist (twice in a week) and had a crafty bottled Guinness in the cinema bar, that was when I was in the lower 6th. I think my parents saw films here in the 1950s — certainly not Bergman but I would like to think they queued up for Wilder (that’s the director by the way). The last film I saw here was an Austin Powers one, possibly the first. Nowadays when I return to Llandudno (as one must, but it’s hardly we’ll always have Paris), I go there to get the free WiFi and remember the movies I saw over the years (I have a pint as well, it’s got better over the last couple of years). The other cinema I used to go to (I saw a lot of Bond and Carry On movies there) was pulled down and is now a fortress of warden controlled flats. Cinemas, like pubs, have their own memories and like the Proms audience currently acclaiming a rather excellent performance of Listz’s Faust I acclaim Wetherspoons for their sensitivity in adapting somewhere that was so important to me when I was growing up.


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