WIRKSWORTH: Lights, camera action....New cinema’s launch party

Retro Hollywood-style glamour came to the Derbyshire Dales as the area’s newest and only cinema opened its doors for the first time.
Paul Carr and Esther Patterson launch The Northern Light CinemaPaul Carr and Esther Patterson launch The Northern Light Cinema
Paul Carr and Esther Patterson launch The Northern Light Cinema

Vintage gowns and bow ties, cocktails and canapes set the scene for the launch of The Northern Light Cinema in Wirksworth.

Sponsors, contractors, friends and family poured into the venue at North End this evening (Thursday, July 4) to toast the efforts of husband and wife Paul Carr and Esther Patterson, the entrepreneurs at the helm of the business.

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American Independence Day may have been an apt day to open the independent cinema, but it was timed to coincide with Esther’s 45th birthday.

Paul Carr and Esther Patterson launch The Northern Light CinemaPaul Carr and Esther Patterson launch The Northern Light Cinema
Paul Carr and Esther Patterson launch The Northern Light Cinema

Dressed in a 1950s style dress she had bought from a vintage fair in London, Esther said: “I have had some unusual birthdays. We’ve hired a train with a piano on it, we’ve had a guerilla cinema function and we used to have big parties with bands. We just love doing different things.”

Isabel Cordero, front of house worker in the cinema, attended the cinema launch in a 1930s evening gown which she had picked up for just £40 a couple of weeks earlier from the proprietor of vintage clothes shop Moda Retro in Wirksworth.

Ben Dew, the Mayor of Wirksworth, said: “The cinema is absolutely fantastic...it is going to be a great asset to the community. Paul and Esther have worked so hard for the past 14 months.”

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The first film to be screened in the new cinema was A Streetcar Named Desire, chosen because it was featured in a picture of people at the original Wirksworth Cinema on St John Street over half a century ago.

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