Cinema Paradiso

I went last night to my local cinema to see The Road - a good film, I thought, even though, as Flann O'Brien might have put it, there wasn't a laugh in it.

But anyway it isn't the film I wanted to write about.

The Electric Picture House is a small, 100-seat cinema in Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire. It is run almost entirely by volunteers and shows mainstream films: Avatar the week before last and Alice in Wonderland this week - both in 3D.

Seats are wonderfully comfortable too - while the interior is decorated in a tasteful dark blue shade that seems perfect somehow for a cinema.

I found myself wondering why I would ever want to go anywhere else.