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| Inside Cineworld Renfrew Street Photo: Max Crawford |
Glasgow's Cineworld holds the odd distinction of being the world's tallest cinema. Built for Virgin Cinemas before the chain was acquired by French group UGC, its record has stood for more than 20 years and in truth is vanishingly unlikely to be challenged. There are bigger cinemas, ones with bigger screens, and the geographic, theatrical, and economic landscapes have changed so much that the notion of a high-rise city-centre cinema feels like something from another age. It might be a living fossil, but it's still impressive.
Glasgow's a cinema city, with at one point almost a hundred theatres. Though it's usually referred to as 'Renfrew Street', the structure sits between that and Renfrew Lane, sandwiched between West Nile and Renfield Streets. When it was built that meant it was one street north and five east from the ABC, three streets east from the GFT, and three streets north of the Odeon.
By the time it opened the ABC was already closed. Its various transformations as an entertainment venue continuing until it was collateral damage in both Glasgow School of Art fires. It was the site of Glasgow's first public film showing back in 1896, but in the century and a bit before it stopped being a cinema it changed hands and functions several times. As a circus, a dance hall, and a variously modernised cinema it entertained generations of Glaswegians. After the ABC closed it became a gig venue, but that resurrection seems much less likely for the Cineworld.
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| Cineworld Renfrew Street Photo: Stephen Sweeney, licensed under Creative Commons |
As the chain that owns it has experienced significant financial difficulties the cinema itself has shown several signs of it. Some of this is mechanical. Though it's got three lifts for several years only two have worked. The western lift had doors on two sides to allow access to staff areas and I don't think I've seen it move in years. The eastern lift is a glass effort, a bit like the Wonka Chocolate Factory, though the views across the nearby bus station aren't as fantastic. It's not quite an exterior elevator. There are windows on the building's corner. On several occasions these have been obscured by promotional posters, and if you look you can see old tickets that have fallen through the crack at the door and rested on the girders that make up the structure. There are some other quirks. The digital poster displays sometimes misbehave and have a habit of showing films that have been and gone months before.
The top floor has a large lounge after a relatively recent renovation. Cineworld's VIP offering has proven to have less longevity than actual nonsense like 4DX with its wiggly seats and reminder about UV sterilisation of its puffs of water. While the notion of dining at the cinema might hold it didn't really work in a city centre location. For what it cost to eat you could get better nearby, and the prospect of unlimited popcorn after similarly unlimited buffet was a stretch. That's now been abandoned and the top floor's screens are sold as 'recliner'. The various warnings about significant injury if you look for stuff you've dropped between them seem to work more reliably than they do.
While it's not without problems it's done well to survive. Though it outlasted the Odeon (now flats and offices) and the ABC (about to become the same) it's been joined by another couple of cinemas. Down Buchanan Street (one west, a few down) there's a Vue with nine screens in the St Enoch Shopping Centre. There's also an Everyman (same west, fewer down) in the basement of the Princes Square Shopping Centre. There are very clear comparisons between them, the Vue has recliners throughout and the Everyman makes a point of its dining and drinking options. The GFT has been one of the factors that has helped sustain the Cineworld, as the Glasgow Film Festival has often made use of the additional screens.
It's also perhaps unusual in that it's not part of a shopping centre. Multiplexes are traditional 'anchor tenants' for malls, at least in the US. In the time that the Cineworld has been open Vue have moved into converted sections of the St Enoch centre and an extension of Glasgow Fort, an open-air shopping structure to the East. Cineworld also occupy a recent extension of Glasgow's Silverburn, a covered mall to the South. It is on a shopping street though. It sits on one of the corners of the 'z' that in its heyday had a Marks & Spencer on each leg and John Lewis in the middle. It isn't uncommon to have to navigate shopping bags in the aisles at certain times of year, and one can almost guarantee seeing bright yellow Lego store branding for certain films.
Anything special about the films?
It's a mainstream cinema, but a big one. While the GFT covers the art-house Cineworld often has releases in Tamil, Telegu, Hindi and more. It's also often got anime as both sub and dub, alternating screenings to get both sets of fans. It's been an absolute boon for catching midnight screenings of big releases like Star Wars and the MCU, but also for picking up smaller titles that get bumped from places with fewer screens. It had Skyfall screenings for almost three months at first run. Cineworld have also been good about re-releases and anniversary screenings as a chain. It's not Cineworld's largest multiplex, the O2 has one more screen and their outposts in Sheffield and Wroclaw have 20 each. However that does give options for screenings.
What formats does it have?
It's got 2D, 3D, 4DX and Superscreen. Superscreen's the big one that isn't IMAX, 4DX the one that gives you a wiggly chair and puffs of air. 3D has more or less disappeared, but almost every screen is the silvered type with the enhanced reflectivity for the Real-3D stereoscopic process. That does have an impact on presentation, you can run into issues with contrast.
Anything special about the films I've seen there?
I have seen something like a thousand films in the building. That is about one every eight days since it opened. It's a figure definitely helped by Cineworld's Unlimited card, UGC's version before then, but also festival and press screenings. For years one of the landings on the long escalator journey had a poster for IVANSXTC a film that I saw there and almost nobody else did. I've got a box with tickets from almost every screening I've seen. A ridiculous proportion of them are from this building in its various guises. I've spent whole days in its screens. Scotland's first Pret A Manger is on the same block, and there are plenty of occasions where that proximity has factored into my calculations for timing between films. For a large part of my working life I had weekdays off. With public screenings starting at ten it was possible to take advantage of off-peak fares and grab a "flicknic" before the lunch rush. I've seen so many films here that it's impossible to characterise them, there will have been periods where I spent more time watching these screens than televisions.
Any cinematic memories?
Sort of. I've just said that I've seen so many films here that it's hard to say anything about them but that also means there have been a few memorable moments. The screens on the top floor have been reorganised and restructured a couple of times. I once saw a horror film on a particularly windy day. I'd have to do some digging to figure out what the film actually was, but that wasn't the part worth recalling. The building is a solid core but its exterior walls aren't load bearing. At that height, and in the high winds, they were being pushed in and out by the gales outside. That tension did more to heighten the experience than any score or camera trick.
I'd mentioned food, and nearby venues. For years there was an Italian restaurant called Dino Ferrari a couple of minutes away on Sauchiehall Street. One evening in a film I remember smelling food, and my thought was "is that penne arrabiatta?" Obviously a nonsense, for a start how does one detect the shape? Except as I continued to watch someone in the front row started unpacking distinctive foil takeaway containers, and then a paper bag of garlic bread. That restaurant closed in 2014, it's now a Bella Italia, but I've thought about those strangers' meal every time I'm peckish at the cinema since.
Anything special about the audiences?
As a popular city-centre cinema it often forms part of nights out, and that can mean large and sometimes misbehaving crowds. That's much less of a problem in the day-time, and towards the end of a film's run. It used to be that screenings started at about ten o'clock and it wasn't uncommon to find oneself sharing a cinema with pensioners. That cinema city legacy lives on, and between bus passes and concession rates it wasn't an expensive way to spend a few hours. Good public transport links help too. It's a few minutes walk from both train stations, Buchanan Street underground, and dozens of bus routes and the bus station itself. There's a car park diagonally opposite too, and there have been occasions where I've looked for my car on the top floor from that glass lift. The audiences for films are about as you'd expect, though there's often a youthful surge in October as the university terms start. There's also a huge number of kids during the school holidays, unsurprisingly given how many folk live in the region.
Can you get coffee?
Yes, depending on how snobbish you are. There's a Starbucks on the first floor. The refreshments stands have differently branded bean to cup machines as well. If you've got an unlimited card there's a discount at Starbucks, but you can't use the Starbucks app there. That is, I believe, because it's a concession, but there's no significant difference in the offering or even signage. There is a warning that you should not take hot drinks to 4DX. That's beyond the general warning that it doesn't really lend anything to the cinematic experience, but I find caffeine deprivation even more distressing a thought than being shoogled about for two hours.
