Edward Scissorhands – 17 December 2016, Village Screen Pop-Up Cinema, Sheffield
Confession time, 26 years after its release I have never seen the Tim Burton classic Edward Scissorhands, so when I was offered free tickets to see it as part of the Village Screen Pop-Up Cinema in a Kelham Island warehouse on Saturday 17 December I jumped at the chance.
For those like me who have never seen it, the film, starring Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder, is a modern day fairy tale, telling the story of Edward, a man created by an inventor who died before finishing him and left him with scissors where he should have hands. One day when the local Avon representative calls at the historic mansion where he has been living alone, she takes him home to stay with her family. He has to adapt to the new life and environment that he isn’t used to. Soon he shows a talent in cutting hair and hedges and wins every body’s heart. But life isn’t always so sweet.
As a newcomer to the film I can best describe it as a cross between “The Stepford Wives”, a live action “Corpse Bride” and “Heathers”, with the chemistry between Depp and Ryder shining through (it’s the first film in which I understand why women may fancy him) and leaving me wishing that Edward was the source of all the snow in the world, though as a lover of film credits I want to suggest that they are left to roll at least until after the cast list and not cut off after a couple of seconds.
For the event the huge industrial warehouse space, once we had found it and even then through the wrong entrance, had been transformed into a Christmas cinema space, with rows of deck chairs (first time ever sat in one), coloured bulbs decorating the season and sparkly Christmas trees surrounding the screen and DJ booth, playing Christmas music before and after the film, a full stocked bar serving mulled wine (tried and tested by my boyfriend) and local street food vendors including Dim Sum Su, Nether Edge Pizza and The Depot Bakery, whose brownies are to die for (though sadly the food stalls had packed up by the end of the film when the audience could have benefited from something warm and filling for the journey home).
Wrapped up from the cold all audience members had guaranteed seats for the screening, including for the VIPs sofas, hot water bottles and popcorn.
Tickets to the screening were £12 for adults over the age of 16, £9 for children over the age of 12 and students and £40 for VIP tickets.
The pop up cinema event was organised by The Village Green Events Co, a Sheffield based events company which aims to create quirky and beautiful events on a budget, who are part of the UK events company consortium Very Creative Group. In 2000 The Village Green Events Co. launched their first pop up cinema showing classic films in quirky indoor and outdoor locations in and around Sheffield, as well as producing private cinema events for from 20 to 2000 people, which I would recommend if they are ever showing one of your favourites or you fancy a night out with a difference.
For details of The Village Green’s future events visit www.thevillagegreenevents.co/micro-events.phpm, follow them on Twitter at https://twitter.com/VG_Events or like them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/TheVillageGreenEventsCo.
P.S. Not been to a pop up cinema event, beware of throw etiquette. Unlike other events were people reserve there seats with coats or bags at this event so many deckchairs were reserved with old fashioned throws that it looked like they had been provided by the organisers leading to people accidentally taking other people’s non-reserved seats, including ourselves.