A 23years old snooker player broke the world championship record that make people talking……..

The text provides an in-depth look inside the renowned Scala cinema in London.

The author recalls their first experience at the Scala cinema in 1981, when they were 17 and working night shifts cleaning planes at Gatwick Airport. They were part of a crew of oddballs who regularly escaped the constraints of their conservative town by going to London to explore clothes shops, go to gigs, and watch films at the Scala.

The Tottenham Street Scala closed in April 1981 when the building was redeveloped as Channel 4 offices. Within three months, its programmer Stephen Woolley moved the operation to an abandoned ‘Primatarium’ above a snooker club in a 1920s electric picture palace near King’s Cross station. The author enjoyed the all-night shows at the Scala, which felt like entering a fairytale castle with endless marble mosaic staircases and a jungle mural.

In 1988, a tiny advert appeared in The Guardian newspaper: Scala programmer wanted, £12k p/a. The author applied for the job and was interviewed by Woolley, who had a stuffed wolf in a glass box in this office. The author recounted their college years at the Scala, seeing not only repeat showings of Blade Runner, The Evil Dead, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Ms. 45 Angel of Vengeance, and other stylish horror and sci-fi movies, but also experimental films such as Scorpio Rising.

JoAnne Sellar, 19, was hired at the Scala in 1982 and used the monthly fold-out program to campaign against legal restrictions being imposed on home entertainment. She also had to help shift a dead body found in the cinema after a screening of Looking for Mr Goodbar. Despite the challenges, Sellar seems remarkably untraumatised by the experience.