Barbarella - an immersive 1960s cinema experience

Join us on 23 January as we take you back to October 1968 when Barbarella, a sci-fi adventure starring a creatively-clad futuristic Jane Fonda, was released in the UK. Two days before its release, American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos brought black power onto the world's screens at the Mexico City Olympics; a few months earlier, an anti-Vietnam protest turned into a riot outside the U.S. Embassy in Grosvenor Square. Hippies and London's underground scene were helping stoke the anti-establishment spirit of the time. 

If you would like to return for an evening to the atmosphere and spirit of that time, our friendly cinema staff will be on hand to make your evening as comfortable as possible. The cinema manager, ushers and usherettes will welcome you warmly and show you to your seat. You will be treated to a full programme of 1968 newsreels, advertisements and cartoons, and given the chance to buy boiled sweets, shake-in-the-bag crisps and Kia Ora before the feature.  Being huge sci fi aficionados, our ushers and usherettes have some surprises in store to make sure that you choose the PCC over your local Rank, Odeon or ABC cinema.

This immersive cinema event was created using findings from UCL's Cultural Memory and British Cinema-going of the 1960s project financed by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The project collected memories of those who went to cinemas in the 1960s - a crucial decade in the history of cinema and Britain in general. Nearly a thousand people completed questionnaires or were interviewed to give their memories of sixties cinema-going. UCL Historians and a group of young actors have worked together on these recollections to develop an immersive cinema event which faithfully recreates the experience of cinema-going in the 1960s. 

Links

• Book tickets on the Prince Charles Cinema website
• Learn more about the 1960s British Cinema-going Project
• Access our archive of cinema memories