I’ve just seen Audrey Tautou’s latest film Delicacy (6/10). The highlight of the trip, however, was to discover that after an experimental period of about three months, Cineworld have finally put the not-so-cheap-but-nevertheless-cheerful pick’n'nix sweet selection back in the foyer.
They made two fundamental mistakes: they went posh, and they went healthy. Instead of the cola bottles, jelly babies, strawberry bonbons, fake-chocolate-covered raisins, pink shrimps, non-Cornish-non-dairy fudge (perhaps this post is getting a bit too confessional for a blog), they created a beautifully displayed posh nuts and healthy dried fruit pick’n'mix counter.
Can you believe it? What a complete misreading of the psychology of cinema, which is about comfort food, returning to the childhood wonder of our first cinematic experiences, eating what is bad for you not just because you like it but because of the added frisson of guilt associated with the transgression itself, the surging highs of an industrially produced sugar hit and the corresponding lows just seven minutes later, the knowledge that you are paying so vastly over the odds per gram of plastic liquorice that you just have to savour it for all it’s worth, and the sheer gastronomic delight of chomping through the panoply of artificial flavours and colours, or of making a single piece of ‘fudge-that-isn’t-really-fudge’ last through the whole of the first act of Citizen Kane.
As if we were going to pay £1.78 for 100 grams of hand-hatched pecan nuts and beach-dried mango strips.
Anyway, the people have spoken, Cineworld has listened, the fruit and nuts have gone, and the technicolour junk is back. The guy at the till told me that no-one was buying them. End of story.
It was worth it as an experiment though. Why? Because it means they finally had to clear out the five-year old sweets that had been sitting at the bottom of the buckets and rising to the top now and then, ready to break your teeth. It’s a sad moment when you relax back into your cinema seat and the purple jelly baby is as hard as a gobstopper and the foam shrimp snaps in your mouth like melba toast. Never again! Well, that’s a bit too hopeful. What I mean is, we’ve got a few months now before the new stock starts to deteriorate again.
At last she smiles :O)
I would be so sad if I went to the pick and mix section and couldn’t find cola bottles and jelly beans! anyways dried fruit and nuts are pretty high in fat, I’d choose the sweets every time :-)
If you’re sat with a gin and tonic, then it’s time for nuts!
You must have a very posh cinema if they serve G&Ts!
Love the post Fr Stephen!
Cinema in Clapham serves great G&Ts…
Now I think of it, there is a bar in the Fulham Road cinema, I just never think of using it, as I’m normally rushing in as the Orange advert is finishing.
In Nottingham we used to have a very small cinema (@30 seats) that served assorted cakes and pastries on cake stands during the interval. We are also lucky enough to have an independent cinema that has a bar and restaurant and you can take drinks in with you. Lovely though this is, I do like the pick and mix in some cinemas even if they are over priced.
Leave enough time to buy your goodies before going into the cinema. The reward for this behaviour is quality ,price and the satisfaction of not being conned by the cinema chain. Oh the joys of thrift..
A great idea Jake!