Brighton is missing out on cinema

12:07pm Wednesday 29th August 2007

One would imagine a city the size of Brighton and Hove with its tourist and cultural ambitions would have the finest cinema has to offer outside London. Sadly this is far from the case.

The city is continually missing out on mainstream films that one would expect to see here as a matter of course. They get advertised, trailered and reviewed here but don't get shown. Brighton has no match for the superb 15-screen multiplexes at Crawley or Chichester.

The lack of choice is due to Brighton having two cinemas showing almost the same programmes, with major releases taking up a number of screens.

Added to that the Duke of York's is programming mainstream fare such as The Simpsons Movie.

Take for example two releases out on August 10. Waitress was trailered in the cinema, got a four-star rating in The Guide and a half-page review in the Leader but it is not being shown here. And what has happened to Licence To Wed? It has got intensive advertising with posters on phone booths in the city centre around Churchill Square and West Street. Can you see it here? No.

Come on Brighton. Stop treating cinema as an after-thought. Let's have the facilities we deserve.

• David Maddocks
  New England Road,

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