BennyTheJudge

so we are in london visiting and begging for work. yes we are italians who made the mistake to leave london and now we are back because italy is a wasteland and we must run away as fast as possible and so we are begging for work all over europe, actually all over the world (well almost).

we used to live near Whiteleys and my wife always liked the cinema (the Odeon cinema) so we decided to go for Carnage. When we got to last floor we noticed the Odeon entrance had changed quite a lot, but i rushed to the restroom and my wife got the tickets.

We were then ushered to the second floor and immediately noticed the difference. The stair had been turned in a late-roman-empire-decadent stair of mirrored and woods, with the name “The lounge” on a sign which had an ominous resemblance with my idea of Dante’s Inferno gate to hell (“Per me si va  nella citta’ dolente, per me si va…”).

And in fact hell it was, landing on the second floor at the top of the stairs we were in fact no longer at the Odeon cinema but in a sort of decadent modern bordello lounge, surprisingly empty for this sort of place in London. We struggled to find anyone to direct us to cinema nr. 4 (due to the emptiness) and eventually someone took us there. En route she asked “do you know the concept?”. “What CONCEPT?” I replied, annoyed because it was getting late and i don’t like to be late at movies.

As she was talking about food, drinks, ordering of food and drinks we made our entrance to cinema (or better lounge) number 4.

I was shocked to find myself in a sort of replica of the Electric Cinema in Portobello, only worse due to the presence of some black-dressed waitresses and waiters (I normally consider this type of personell a bad omen of a posh pretentious expensive restaurant).

As we sat at our super comfy chairs with electric controls, I noticed that chairs were provided of a sort of fixed tray with cutlery, a napkin and a menu.

Very confusing. The small audience was made of couples of various ages, all dressed up and bearing a sign saying: “fine dining, drinking and partying” and not “movie goer”.

At this point I asked my wife to show me the tickets and it was then that I discovered with horror that we had paid 18 pounds each for the tickets. That’s eighteen and if you think it’s not much, then please be unemployed for several months first.

As I was trying not to explode, a waiter dressed in black was kneeling by me asking what I wanted.

“I am fine thanks”.

THe rest of the story is that people order food and dine while watching the movie, so you get the pleasure of listening to the tinkling of their cutlery while trying to listen to a movie which, in this case, it’s all about dialogues.

If that wasn’t enough you also have to smell the salmon of your neighbour. And the wooshing noise of someone sucking the bottom of the 7 pounds 70 pence “5 dollar shake” (someone there must have gotten confused with the exchange).

However the best part was yet to come.

Some of the people took this dining experience to the extreme, by making chitchat and comments on food and drinks during the movie, as if they were standing in the home cinemas.

Something that is not only rude to the others but also plain stupid because in the end if you want to eat, watch a movie and have a chat, why don’t you just stay home?

My comment on the experience is: horrible, absolutely unacceptable to pay 18 pounds to watch a movie with uncle bob commenting on his salmon or aunt polly sucking her shake.

Besides the main bar area was so empty it was almost sad. Given the past rate of success of whiteleys, I am afraid this is another doomed experiment.