In this extract Ian Hislop recalls his student days at Oxford, and how going to the Penultimate Picture Palace could be both and adventure, and an education!
“This was an independent cinema that showed whatever it felt like… whether you liked it or not really!
It was a completely different experience for me to going to a multiplex or a normal type of cinema.
I hadn’t been to any art cinemas by that age. So, it was a completely different type of building. They didn’t flog you popcorn when you went in, you know, it was a cup of coffee and a Gauloises, and then a long discussion afterwards. It was a new way of going to the cinema, a much more intellectual approach.
The trip to the PPP involved going into enemy territory as it were, so you had to go. I mean… it was an event, it was a pilgrimage to go and worship at the altar of cinema.
I have a memory of people in polo-necks which I may just have made up later. But it was a sophisticated crowd, or one that was pretending to be sophisticated! Certainly in my case!”