This week has a new British drama, a fun quiz and a return for the Silver Screen on Thursday mornings at 11am.

Tickets are £4.30 each and includes a hot drink and a biscuit.

Which is what Harold Fry will need after his very long walk.

l For booking details, visit wtwcinemas.co.uk

New Releases

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

The finest British acting talent head up the cast with Jim Broadbent as the titular character.

Devonshire man Harold receives a message from a former colleague of twenty years ago, Queenie Hennessy (Penelope Wilton, Downton Abbey) who has cancer and is in a hospice in Berwick-upon-Tweed. The doctors say there is nothing more that can be done for her.

He writes her a feeble and brief note and goes to post it, has second thoughts, and walks to the next post box, and the next. He phones the hospice from a call box and leaves a message.

He is coming and she should wait and stay alive. Fry then sets out on a 627 mile walk to visit his friend. A journey with a purpose and one which brings him much self reflection.

Silver Screen

Women Talking

Silver Screen returns tomorrow with a spring programme that includes The Whale and Allelujah in the coming weeks.

First up is powerful drama Women Talking. The women of an isolated religious community grapple with reconciling their reality with their faith.

Through the backstory, we see a community of women come together to figure out how they might move forward together to build a better world for themselves and their children.

Starring Claire Foy, Rooney Mara and Frances McDormand the film won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for writer/director Sarah Polley.

Event Cinema

The Marriage of Figaro

Event Cinema brings the opera back tomorrow night with The Marriage of Figaro on April 27.

Servants Figaro and Susanna are filled with excitement on their wedding day, but there’s a hitch: their employer, the Count Almaviva, has dishonourable intentions of his own towards the bride-to-be.

With more twists than a page boy’s stockings, the story of Mozart’s comic opera will surprise and delight you at every turn. Come for the music and stay for the cross-dressing hilarity, all unfolding over the course of one crazy, topsy-turvy day in the Almaviva household.

Royal Opera Music Director Antonio Pappano conducts a truly international cast in David McVicar’s timeless production.

Champion - Met Opera

The Plaza are screening another MET opera this Saturday, April 29 with Champion.

Six-time Grammy Award–winning composer Terence Blanchard brings his first opera to the Met after his Fire Shut Up in My Bones triumphantly premiered with the company to universal acclaim in 2021. Bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green is the young boxer Emile Griffith, who rises from obscurity to become a world champion, and bass-baritone Eric Owens portrays Griffith’s older self, haunted by the ghosts of his past. Soprano Latonia Moore is Emelda Griffith, the boxer’s estranged mother, and mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe is the bar owner Kathy Hagan.

Yannick Nezet-Seguin takes the podium for Blanchard’s second Met premiere, also reuniting the director-and-choreographer team of James Robinson and Camille A. Brown.

Cinema Memories

Regular readers will be aware that I’m recounting my years in the cinema along with staff interviews.

This week has not been an easy one for me and reminded me of the many ups and downs that St Austell cinema has been through.

I was recently flicking through the old scrap books and found the photos that had the demolition of The Filmcentre. The building was iconic in the town and yielded many happy memories for its numerous visitors over the years.

A bumpy few years with the closure and rebuild was tricky for all but when we opened the White River in 2008 there was a huge queue and hustle and bustle to celebrate the new jewel in the town centre’s crown.

Whilst there are many aspects of The Filmcentre I miss, the entrance foyer chandeliers and the curtains on the big screens, the cinema going experience is much improved for all.

Stadium seating, 7.1 sound in most auditoriums and fully accessible for all. So on reflection it has to be said the bumpy road has delivered a great end for us all to enjoy our cinema going within.