Chiswick Cinema celebrates 5th birthday – What’s next?

Party bags for the cinema’s fifth birthday bash

It was no mean feat opening a cinema in the midst of a pandemic – Now they’ve survived the first five years, what’s next?

Cinema is back. “This is the strongest year we’ve had since pre-Covid”, says Chris Parker, film programmer and marketing manager at Chiswick Cinema.

We talked a couple of days after the cinema’s fifth birthday bash, when The Odyssey was just about to open and they were still riding high from the successes of Toy Story 5 in June and The Devil Wears Prada II the month before.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day opens at the end of this month, and the autumn holds the promise of a brand new version of Sense and Sensibility, with Daisy Edgar-Jones (Normal People) as Elinor Dashwood and Chiswick’s own George MacKay (1917, Munich – The Edge of War) as Edward Ferrars.

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(Ferrars is introduced in the novel as someone not immediately interesting or likable: reserved, a bit awkward, and not handsome – ‘not recommended to their good opinion by any peculiar graces of person or address’ – why would any young actor not be flattered to be offered such a part?)

That’s enough to put a smile on the face of any marketing man, let alone the prospect of another Marvel blockbuster, Avengers Doomsday, and another huge franchise, Dune III before Christmas.

The Odyssey (2026); Photograph by Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pic – © Universal Studio

Enjoying a bit of stability

The drought is officially over. The double whammy of Covid and the Hollywood writers’ strike which followed it presented cinemas with a dearth of new films to show.

At a time when they are under threat from live streaming platforms, costs are rising, and the window in which audiences can only see a new film at the cinema has diminished, they have been struggling and some have been forced to close.

So when I asked Chris what was the greatest success of Chiswick Cinema’s first five years, his honest answer was “just staying open”.

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Chris has been with the cinema from the start, his first job with parent company Trafalgar Entertainment.

He remembers screwing together the table at which we were sitting in the lounge, working out how to put it together from a flat pack, and reminds me the team were trying to learn everything at once – how to run a building with five screens at a time when strangers could not sit next to each other and they had to programme the ticketing software to accommodate ‘household bubbles’, with empty seats all around them.

(L) Connor Harper, general manager; (R) Chris Parker film programmer and marketing manager at Chiswick Cinema

A new general manager

While Chris has won praise for his creative programming, filling the new film void by making the most of Chiswick’s talents, with special seasons curated by local residents Michael Attenborough and Michael Billington and the Chiswick In Film festivals, there have been hiccups on the organisational side, requiring last minute phone calls to agencies to find staff to man the popcorn stall for the weekend and that kind of thing.

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Mercifully Chiswick Cinema now has a new general manger Connor Harper, who has 14 years of experience in running all kinds of entertainment venues.

Connor arrived three months ago from the Wycombe Swan theatre, having worked his way up through hospitality to take on the roles of duty manager at the Beck theatre in Hayes, events manager at the Guildford theatre, overseeing the restructuring of that theatre and becoming general manager of both hospitality and events before making the move to the Wycombe Swan as director.

He is excited to experience a different strand of entertainment at our “gorgeous” venue, he tells me, which he had visited many times before coming to work here.

He will be dusting off his tap shoes over the summer, taking the Barnes and Richmond Operatic Society to Cornwall to present a production of Anything Goes at the open air Minack theatre, so while the cinema should not run out of loo rolls any time soon, he will also be inputting his own creative flair.

Little Bao Boys food coming to Chiswick Cinema soon 

Reopening the kitchen to serve hot food from Little Bao Boys

They are well set for the next five years, they tell me. With a new website and ticketing system under their belts and the recently launched Under 30s membership offering cheaper tickets across the week for 15 – 30s, they are working on bringing in new audiences.

Cinema goers will be pleased to hear they are reopening the kitchen to serve hot food at weekends. Little Bao Boys will be providing Asian fusion food. The company, which started in Leeds, and were featured in MasterChef: The Professionals, has had a stall at the Food St market and were introduced to the cinema through market organiser Richard Johnson.

“We met with quite a few traders through Richard”, says Chris. Importantly, for food which someone is going to take into the screen room and eat beside you while you’re watching a film, the kind of food they serve is hand food: “not messy, not too smelly, and not noisy to eat”, says Connor.

As well as all the big blockbuster movies scheduled for later this year, Chris is planning a season of adaptations of Shakespeare plays, curated by theatre critic and Chiswick resident Michael Billington, and a ‘Books on Film’ series.

“We want to expand the film clubs” says Chris, as Andrea’s Film Club and the French Impressions sessions are both very popular, though they are “resting” the Chiswick In Film festival next year. It is just too much work, “like a whole second job”, and there is too much else going on. But, says Chris, they are committed to bring it back the year after.

“There is an absolute 100% commitment from the cinema to bring it back”. he says. “It’s a really cool part of what we do”.

Dogs and babies are part of the new audience. Both dog-friendly and baby-friendly screenings have proved a hit.

If only Lassie had come from Chiswick …