Decade of entertainment

When opened by Hollywood megastar Liza Minelli in June 1989, the cinema was the flagship of Warner Bros' new multiplex cinemas.

Boasting 12 screens and 4,000 seats, it was for many years the biggest and busiest cinema in Europe. Until the past year, in which several other multiplexes have sprung up in northern Greater Manchester, it averaged between one and one-and-a-half million customers a year.

Over its entire history the Bury Times anmd THis is Lancashire cinema critic RICHARD LEWIS has been watching movies and covering events at the Pilsworth cinema - from the ground-breaking ceremony to regular morning visits to see press shows of upcoming movies.

Nobody else, in fact, has such a long personal connection: manager Calvin Whitehead is the longest-serving member of staff and has notched up only nine years.

Here Richard looks back at a decade of movie-going on a patch of industrial estate beside the M66 . . . THE glitzy opening was the first of many special events, but I had already had a taste of the glamour to come.

Back in 1988 I piled into a coach outside Bury Town Hall to be taken up the road to see Susan George cut the first sod on the development site.

At the time, I wasn't convinced. I was brought up on weekly visits to the Mayfair in Whitefield, or a trip into Bury to the Odeon or Classic for a treat. If I wanted to see a new movie, it was into Manchester and a queue at the Odeon.

Now the Mayfair is to be a furniture warehouse, the Bury Odeon is a nightclub, and the Classic, like 221b Baker Street, is the site of a building society branch.

And Warner Village, as it has been known for the past couple of years, is still going strong.

Anyway, that September day back in 1988, at a rainy building site, Miss George rolled up the sleeves of her posh jacket and dug up the first lump of Lancashire soil which was to make way for a piece of Hollywood.

She said nice things, a big Egyptian chap called Salah Hassenain said nice things, and everyone went back to Bury Town Hall for lunch.

The picture our chief photographer Roy Bolton took of Miss George signing the visitors' book at the town hall stayed on the mayor's desk for the rest of his year in office, I can tell you.

A few months later and it was the big opening, and the first time my tuxedo had seen action since I was a student. The day before I had had a very short flat-top haircut (hey, this was the '80s) and everyone kept giving me their tickets on the door.

Despite looking like a bouncer I did get in to see the film (Police Academy 6, and I got to meet all the stars) and enjoy the party afterwards. Highlights included nicking one of Amanda Donohoe's cigarettes as we danced to the Glenn Miller Band.

The night saw £26,000 raised for Bury Hospice.

Events came and went . . . A year after the cinema opened, Philip Schofield, who was very well known at the time, went along to be greeted by hordes of screaming kids. There were other premieres and parties, but nothing to match up to the opening until three years ago, when Manchester United hosted a charity premiere of the John Travolta movie Broken Arrow.

Stars of stage and screen packed the cinema alongside the United players. In screen one, I sat two seats behind a young lad just breaking into the first team who managed to munch his way through a whole bag of chocolate eclairs. His name? David Beckham. Whatever happened to him?

Later in the night I chatted to Eric Cantona ("Did you like the film, Eric?" I asked. "It was vair good," he said. Interview of the century over); and also to his missus in the queue for the food. And I sat next to a woman who paid £20,000 in an auction for a night out with Ryan Giggs.

It was probably the most glamorous night of my young(ish) life - until I got married in Las Vegas.

Other great days at the pictures . . .

Watching six Star Trek movies one after the other, being kept going with slices of pizza and drinks of 7-up. It might have been Sprite then. East Ward councillor Trevor Holt was also in the audience, as were a few people in Starfleet Uniforms.

But it's the films, really, that make the memories. A lot of people have seen a lot of movies there over the past ten years, and, from Police Academy 6, the only way, really, was up.

Since it opened, it has had around nine-and-a-half million bums on its seats; it's where you would have seen Batman, The Silence of the Lambs, Trainspotting, Titanic, The Full Monty, Pulp Fiction, Schindler's List, Unforgiven, LA Confidential and Braveheart - in fact, any one of around the best part of 2,000 films shown there.

It's still a great night out, ten years on, and not just because you can do your shopping across the road after the movie. I've seen some great movies, some bad movies, and I've eaten a lot of Nachos. Long may it continue. Msg 1205, Level 13, State 1: Line 2: Your server command (process id #78) was deadlocked with another process and has been chosen as deadlock victim. Re-run your command.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.