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Silver Screen Comes to Leigh
It is the dawn of a new era of
film…..Leigh’s long awaited Film Club launches on 16th May at the
Turnpike Centre.
Leigh, like many towns and cities in the UK once had an abundance of
cinemas, but the 5th October 1989 saw the closure of its last, the
Cannon on Leigh Road. Since then, there has been no public cinema in
Leigh and the town has been criticised for its lack of one of the
country’s most popular cultural facilities.
Leigh Film Club is a joint initiative between Leigh Library and the
Turnpike Gallery, both part of Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust. The
monthly film screenings will be held in the Gallery at the Turnpike
Centre and will show a much broader range of films than standard
commercial films shown at a multiplex.
The first two screenings on Friday 16th May and Friday 13th June are:
Control, story of Joy Division (Certificate 15) and Wallace and Gromit,
Curse of the Were Rabbit (Certificate U). Both films will be screened
from 7.00pm with doors opening at 6.30pm. Tickets are affordably priced
at £3.00 per adult and £1.50 for children and can be booked in advance
at Leigh Library on 01942 404404. Capacity is for approximately 100
people and age restrictions apply in-line with the British Board of Film
Classification.
Establishing a culture of film at the Turnpike Centre will help realise
one of the central principles of Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust, namely
to ‘Get Wigan Active; mentally and creatively’. Part of the ethos behind
the Film Club is to establish a forum for creative thinking, with
showings that are informative, educational and stimulating as well as
enjoyable.
The first of the screenings has been decided jointly by Libraries and
Galleries staff. However, once the Film Club is firmly established,
decisions about programming will incorporate group member suggestions.
The programme will be broad in scope in order to appeal to a wide
audience and it is hoped that future scheduling will include archive
films, children’s film, silent films, classics, foreign language films
and arthouse.
Paul Banks, Central Library Officer at Leigh Library has lead on the
project for Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust and commented: “We are
delighted that the Film Club has got off the ground. We now need the
support of local people to make sure that we can continue to fill the
gap in Leigh. Our aim is to provide a cultural, educational and
entertaining offer and we hope that everyone in Leigh comes along and
gets involved”.
A new cinema is planned for Leigh as part of the Leigh Sports Village
complex, though timings for this are yet to be confirmed.
-ends-
NOTES TO EDITORS: For further information on this press release please
contact Georgina Bentley on 01942 486930 or at
g.bentley@wlct.org
Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust: Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust is a
charitable trust working on behalf of Wigan Council to manage and
support leisure and cultural facilities, initiatives and events for over
300,000 residents in the Wigan Borough. See
www.wlct.org
Getting Wigan Active: Getting Wigan Active is Wigan Leisure and Culture
Trust’s vision to help people across the Wigan Borough to become more
physically, mentally and creatively active . It also aims to increase
community activity and to encourage good citizenship.
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