Free movies at Embassy Park
Hamilton’s Embassy Theatre may be a fading memory, but movies are still being shown there.
Now known as Embassy Park – or alternatively Riff Raff Square, after the statue of the character from The
Rocky Horror Picture Show situated there – the central city site on Victoria St is about to be used for cinematic screenings, for free.
The first of these is the beloved musical Mamma Mia, which will be shown from 9pm tonight.
The film, made in 2008, features an all-star cast led by Meryl Streep, Colin Firth and Pierce Brosnan. Set to the music of the band Abba and against the backdrop of a colourful Greek island, it tells the story of a young woman about to be married who discovers that any of three men could be her father.
‘‘We’re using an inflatable screen that is the width of the space,’’ explained Mark Servian, who with Shane Hobson organised the screenings under the moniker of The Embassy Park Picture Show.
‘‘Forty seats get put out, though with people standing too the capacity is about 100,’’ Servian said.
If viewers want to, they can bring cushions or a beanbag to sit on.
‘‘There’s also the seater-planter boxes and the edges of the gardens and steps to perch on, which adds another dozen or so places to sit of various levels of comfort.’’
The screenings have been organised by The Riff Raff Public Art Trust and are sponsored by the Hamilton Central Business Association and the Hamilton City Council’s CBD activation fund.
Most importantly though, people should feel free to dress up and dance, Servian said.
‘‘We’ve chosen the summer movies with such participation in mind. Wear your bell bottom jump suits and platform heels.’’
Mamma Mia will be followed by a New Year’s Eve screening of Priscilla
Queen of the Desert, where drag will be the appropriate form of dress.
Third cab off the cinematic rank comes on February 24 in the form of recently deceased director Geoff Murphy’s breakthrough masterpiece
Goodbye Pork Pie. This will be followed exactly one month later by another much-loved New Zealand film, Footrot Flats.
Another Geoff Murphy feature,
The Quiet Earth, will be screened on
April 25.
This Giant Papier Mache Boulder is Actually Really Heavy, a low-budget science fiction epic, will be screened on May 30 and the last film scheduled so far is Hedwig and The Angry Inch , on June 27.
The Embassy Theatre was originally known as The Theatre Royal, which first opened for business in March 1915 with a screening of The
House of Temperley, an adaptation of the play by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
It was taken over by the Kerridge Odeon chain and renamed in the 1950s. The cinema operated until 1989, and despite various efforts to save or restore it, the building was demolished in 1994.
Viewers . . . can bring cushions ora beanbag to sit on.