Celebrations as cinema opens

3:46pm Friday 23rd March 2007

HOLLYWOOD came to Redditch when the town's new cinema officially opened in the Kingfisher Centre.

Around 300 guests looked around the seven screen Apollo multiplex before BBC MidlandsToday presenter Nick Owen performed the opening ceremony yesterday.

Visitors then viewed a special showing of the comedy Mr Bean's Holiday.

Cinema manager Gary Stevens said: "It was a very good night. Just as you'd want it to be. It felt like a Hollywood premiere. It was one to go down in history," he added.

The state-of-the-art, £4.5 million building has a sparkling floor and even 45 varieties of Pick and Mix.

Its opening marks the return of movies to Redditch after more than eight years.

Among the guests at yesterday's ceremony was town mayor Mike Chalk, who said: "The ambience of the whole place is brilliant."

Kingfisher centre manager Ian McLelland was also there. He said the cinema had been a long time coming as he had first shown Apollo around in 2004.

"I think what it brings to the centre and more importantly to the centre of Redditch is that there's a desperate need for entertainment in the centre of Redditch, there's nowhere for people to go and in particularly there's nowhere for kids to go and, at last, we've got something for that," he added.

Members of the public can visit the cinema from today.

Among the first films showing is 300, based on Frank Miller's graphic novel about the Battle of Thermopylae.

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