No Go Britain: horror movie?
As part of our No Go Britain disability access series, Felicity Spector finds that a trip to the cinema with her disabled father is a considerably less than relaxing experience.
Perhaps the mission was doomed from the start. It sounded straightforward enough: a trip to the cinema with my partially-sighted, 90-year-old dad. He doesn’t usually go out on his mobility scooter on his own, without my mum to lead the way, but we like a challenge: we thought we’d give it a go.
I scanned the film reviews in the Guardian and found one described as a “smart, modern comedy”, set in LA. It sounded ideal.
First of all, the short journey to the AMC Broadway Plaza was fraught with stress. My Dad zoomed off on the scooter at high speed, the thing tipping scarily as he veered off kerbs at a jaunty angle, blissfully unaware of me, running in his wake, frantically trying to keep up.
With large stretches lacking any drop kerb at all, I could barely look as he was forced to drive in the road – luckily there wasn’t much traffic.
Disabled access?
Finally, thankfully, we reached the cinema – where the alleged “disabled access” actually required three extra people to hold the incredibly heavy, yet narrow entrance doors and another to move the zig-zag queue barrier placed strategically right in front, so he could actually drive inside.
The cinema screen we wanted turned out to be upstairs, requiring a tricky manoeuvre to get the scooter inside the tiny, narrow lift.
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We managed to squeeze in – and out again – drove right inside the screen, parked at the side, and found a decent seat at the front where dad could see as much as possible. So far, so good.
Until the film actually began when, despite there being no warning in the Guardian review – thanks, guys – there was “sexual content and explicit language from the very start”.
Definitely not the kind of movie you would choose to see with your 90-year-old dad, who took some time to adjust to the dark and kept asking me to explain the plot.
“Shall we just go?”
An hour in, with an hour and a half still to go, and no let up in the constant stream of cringingly embarassing sexual references – I decided enough was enough: this whole thing was clearly never going to get any better. “Shall we just go?” I whispered, and Dad sadly agreed.
There was just the slight challenge of getting a partially sighted man out of a pitch-black cinema on a mobility scooter, half way through a film.
We managed to locate the scooter, but my dad promptly accelerated forwards by mistake, squashing me between the vehicle and the wall. Ouch.
Luckily he found the reverse gear, but that managed to automatically switch on a) a headlight and b) a loud beeping sound like big lorries have when they go into reverse.
The annoyed audience started “shushing” en masse as the wretched scooter bleeped incessantly as my dad wobbled his way backwards up the ramp towards the exit.
Finally, we were free. Except there was the small matter of that tiny lift to negotiate. It got stuck between floors and I had to ring for assistance. Brilliant.
We somehow made it home, around the non-existent drop kerbs, through the busy central Birmingham traffic, past the parked cars and builders’ debris which narrowed the pavements so much that the scooter could barely fit through.
Back home, my mum had snoozed through half an episode of Midsummer Murders and most of Countdown and was unaware of the drama we’d been through. “Good film?”
Not really, no. It’ll be a long time before I attempt another cinema visit with Dad.