Penny Blood's Black Book – My Independent Guide to London - Penny Blood's eclectic collection of favourite places in London to drink coffee, eat cake, have tea, eat out, buy clothes, watch movies, kill time, read Voltaire, quote Baudelaire and write this blog.

It’s an ongoing dilemma for me where to sit in the cinema. I’m forever up against the tricky decision as to whether to sacrifice a good view of the screen for mental comfort by taking an aisle seat, reason being, as soon as I’m boxed in with a row of tightly packed viewers to either side of me, having taken their coats off, arranged their popcorn and drinks and settled down, I will feel an immediate need to go to the bathroom. A recent experience of sitting through ‘Qui Etes Vous Polly Magoo’ followed by 2 1/2 hours of Q&A (no matter how good the film is Q&A’s are always boring) I needed to pee 5 minutes in. Without wanting to make 20 people stand up I decided it was preferable to sustain a bladder infection. Anyway the point being that the seating arrangement at the Rio, itself a lovely little independent cinema in the familiar old theatre style is divided up the centre so you can have both an aisle seat and a middle view all at the same time. They also serve tea, coffee, alcohol and home made cakes.

http://www.riocinema.ndirect.co.uk/

Rio Cinema, 107 Kingsland High Street E8
020 7241 9410

Related posts:

1. Aubin Cinema
2. The Phoenix Cinema
3. Coronet Cinema
4. The Electric Cinema
5. The Gate Cinema