The Monico

After years of darkness is seemed to sit blinking in the light, its back wall ripped out, exposing row up row of faded seats and the sleepy projector window.  It wasn’t done with any kind of decorum, it was as if someone had bent it over, lifted it up its brown and yellow skirt and showed its big granny knickers to the world.

And that was that, the heavy red curtains drawn on the days of Saturday cinema, with the screechy Wurlitzer organ and the parade of birthday children, and the excitement of seeing the stern-faced Mr Monico in the foyer. It was a place of playdates, first dates and Beauty and the Beast.

I used to think that the words ‘Monico’ and ‘Cinema’ were synonymous with each other, and that the giant pot holes in the car park added to the charm. Its carpets were sticky with generations of ‘not to be sold separately’ cans of coke and overpriced Revels. I distinctly remember a man smoking in there once, big puffs billowing up through the projector beam.

When my brother served Mr Monico in Tesco a few years later, he was surprised to learn that his name wasn’t Mr Monico at all, it was in fact Mr Bull. He looked genuinely upset when he later informed me of this.

We had both been duped.