By Mx Kris Vyas-Myall

British cinemas have been in trouble for a while now. In 1950 they saw approximately 1,400,000,000 admissions, or 28 per person. In 1969 this was down to 215,000,000 or less than 4 per person. This is in spite of disposable household income almost doubling over this period.

Who would you rather spend your shillings to fly with? Led Zeppelin or Airport

There are a number reasons cited for this but the biggest is simply competition. Why spend money at a fleapit to watch a film, when you can instead turn on your television and choose between half a dozen films a week without leaving your armchair? In addition, youngsters can go to music concerts that are starting to become bigger events than a Hollywood premiere, whilst older people get community and win prizes in their bingo halls.

As a result, the number of cinemas in the UK has been collapsing, down from more than four and a half thousand in 1951 to around a third of that number in 1969. However, this is not a tenable position because it becomes a vicious cycle, as fewer local cinemas mean less people get into the habit of going regularly, meaning smaller audiences, meaning more have to close.

Newly remodelled Glasgow Odeon

As such a new type of cinema has been opening to try to attract back audiences, known as doubles and triples. Simply put, most cinemas were built to have much larger audiences per showing. So, unless you managed to be lucky enough to get a film 2000+ people per day want to see, you have a huge amount of empty seats. By splitting these from one large theatre into 2 or 3 300-600 seater screens, you can then offer people a choice of both viewings and times. They also do not require extra staff as you can have one booking office for all showings, one projectionist servicing multiple screens from a single room, and touring ushers.

In addition, many chains are making an effort to shake-off the grimy image they have. This has meant redecorating in modern styles, new chic uniforms, comfortable seating and removing advertisements from before showings. This, they believe, will allow them to charge a premium for a luxury experience, creating a speical night out rather than smoke-filled places to avoid the rain.

Then there are some that are trying to experiment by offering unusual films. BBC2 has already demonstrated there is an audience for artistic and foreign language pictures. So in the more trendy areas of major cities, there are cinemas that are showing films of more niche interest. These include such movies as Downhill Racer and Bronco Bullfrog.

Finally, there are also those that are trying to give other reasons to go out, such as getting directors to attend special screenings and answer audience questions afterwards, or pairing with local schools to find out what they believe would help the curriculum. Whether all these efforts will have the desired impact we will have to wait and see, but it is clear something needs to change if the cinema is not to go the way of the blacksmith in the British high street.

Since I was young my Birthday and cinema have gone hand-in-hand. Being born just before Christmas means no one else if available and everywhere is busy, so popping to the local picture-house was the only thing to do. I have continued this every year since, for my Birthday each year I try to seek out some films of interest to me, particularly if they can get me in the festive mood.

Whilst I don’t have a double near me. I did a matinee at one theatre and an evening at another, that gave me two competing slices of Victoriana.

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes:

There have been many adaptations of Sherlock Holmes over the years. Indeed, over the last few British, German and Italian television have all had their own series based on these tales. Now we have the vision of acclaimed director, Billy Wilder.

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