Right before it became a ridiculous thing to do, I sat in a darkened room with tens of strangers and sobbed, mouth agape, at Pixar’s latest offering, Onward. It seems impossible, now, that ten days before Boris Johnson put the nation into lockdown, I enjoyed a casual trip to the cinema. I remember my boyfriend was nervous because the cashier coughed into her hand before giving him our tickets – I dismissed him as paranoid with a chuckle and a big slurp of my Tango Ice Blast (self-served from a machine that touched hundreds of cups touched by hundreds of hands and mouths).
There are so many little things that so many of us miss about life before lockdown: libraries, swimming pools, coffee made by other people, pints, hugs, a dinner out. The innovative among us have found ways to replicate these experiences at home: drinks over Zoom, expensive coffee machines shipped in three to five working days, living rooms turned into restaurants. One thing I can’t seem to replicate – and one thing I desperately miss – is the experience of going to the cinema.