Two Towers farce

I was among the sizeable crowd at the first showing of the much anticipated film 'The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers'. As befitting a film of such grand scale, we opted for the island's largest (non-IMAX) screen - Cinema 16 at the Eden Century Cinemas.

Before the intermission, the film was abruptly stopped, and then started after around 10 minutes. They did not show the courtesy to restart at a point prior to the cut, in fact I believe a tiny segment was skipped. This happened not once, but twice, during the first half.

The audience's cries of complaint were answered by a rude ticket attendant who told us to blame the government for the power cuts. We pointed out that the rest of the building was still lit, but to no avail. Our claims that a decent cinema should have a generator were also waved aside - she claimed it is impossible to have a generator for 16 screens, and that we should be 'mature' and wait quietly for it to restart. It eventually did, without any apology.

If indeed there was a power cut, it was most probably caused by the roadworks taking place outside, which are also a responsability of the Eden Leisure group. Thankfully the film was so brilliant and involving that we didn't waste too much time thinking about the shoddy service.