You never need many excuses to see a film at The Electric Cinema. This is the oldest working cinema in the UK, it has the comfiest sofas you’ll ever sit in – and you can text the bar to bring you drinks and popcorn if you fancy paying for the privilege.

On Friday 25th April they will be screening We Are The Freaks, an ode to teen coming-of-age movies, the fall of Margaret Thatcher and mad nights out in 1990s Birmingham. The ensemble cast includes the stars of This is England, Kill List, Skins and Fresh Meat.

The film premiered at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival and received some excellent reviews. Birmingham-born director Justin Edgar has filled it with energetic and irreverent humour. It does contain many piece-to-camera sequences and references to films of similar genres, but manages not to take itself too seriously.

The film will be followed by an open Q&A session with cast and crew. Click HERE for tickets and more information.

Warning: contains talk of reverb, patch bays, channels and all sorts of other things.

To be filed alongside the behind the scenes vids from The Electric

Photo: Hotdogs by Matt Cattell

A few festive bits and bobs happening around Birmingham…

The Frankfurt Christmas Market closes on Friday 23 December, as does the Festive Pop Up Bazaar on New Street.

It’s the BrumNotes/This Is Tmrw Christmas Party at The Victoria tonight. Click the link or ogle the poster below (sidenote: are Lewes Herriot‘s gig posters the best around town at the moment? Answers on a postcard).

Birmingham Hippodrome have Cinderella on until the end of January and has already picked up some really good reviews from the Birmingham Mail and The Stage. I went along to the press night last night (disclosure: that means they gave me free tickets) and liked the lovely horsey best.

In other theatre-based offerings:

• The Rep have The Snowman at the ICC and Sleeping Beauty at the Crescent Theatre.
• Blue Orange Theatre in the Jewellery Quarter are doing A Christmas Carol
• The MAC have The Lost Happy Endings

In fact, Area Guide’s December issue has a Christmas theatre round-up from page 26 onwards. Ah, and Visit Birmingham have a Christmas round-up too.

Film-wise, Kino 10 are showing The Nightmare Before Christmas plus some short films at St Columba Church on Friday 23 Dec and The Electric have a smattering of festive films too.

Town Hall & Symphony Hall have a bundle of events going on:

• Polar (this afternoon)
• The CBSO’s Great Big Choral Christmas
• Christmas Eve Classics
• Boxing Day Gala

Meanwhile, down in that London, Birmingham Royal Ballet are seeing out the year performing The Nutcracker at the O2, which sounds like a pretty big deal to me.

There’s loads of other stuff too, obviously. If you’ve got any other good suggestions then bung them in the comments.

On the filmic side, The Electric are showing Ghostbusters and at the MAC you can see Nosferatu with a live score by the Midlands Fretted Orchestra.

Jumping the gun by a good eight days (if they turned up at my door that early I’d tell them to do one) are KINO 10 with a Halloween Special promising short films with a ghoulish twist.

Also brought to my attention:

• FIRST FRIGHT: a half-term Halloween horror workshop at MAC from First Light
• There’s a screening of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde with live organ accompaniment at the Town Hall
• Outer Sight Hallowe’en Super Shock Show at The Edge on Sat 29 Oct

Have I missed anything good?

It’s festivals a gogo with the Fierce and Flatpack festivals kicking off today with a whole load of interesting stuff coming to Birmingham between now and Sunday.

You’ll no doubt have done the decent thing and booked up a load of tickets for both of these already but, if not, there should still be time. I’ve had a nosey through the programmes and reckon that I’ll be going to the following:

Tuesday:

• Fierce/Flatpack launch at VIVID
• The Irrepressibles at Town Hall

Wednesday:

• Shadow Shows at the Patrick Centre

Thursday:

• Shorts on Walls at VIVID
• Too Much Information at The Electric

Friday

• Nesst 2
• Queerfest to Fierce at VIVID
• Los Angeles Plays Itself at Ikon Eastside

Installations and ongoing things that I’ll try to catch when I can:

• Burningham
• The Commentators
• The Soldiers’ Song
• Prayer

All subject to having to work to do and so on. Plus I’m not around this weekend, which is a shame because there’s some ace stuff happening.

What are you going to be going to?

The CiB Shop window was jazzed up with the help of Birmingham Royal Ballet, Art Detection Services set up their workshop in store and Shady Bird popped by to play a set. In other CiB news, CiBmail was launched.

The Rainbow announced their plans for developments and expansion both upstairs and below, we said goodbye to more independent record shops and sampad celebrated their 20th anniversary.

Trove showed some science, we had a nosey at CBSO’s summer programme and some behind the scenes footage from The Electric showed up.

Not My Type brought together “a veritable who’s who of Brum talent” (to quote myself) and, in other illustration-related news, the Love To Print crowd released Patterns #1.

Other things to look back on and go ‘oh yeah, I remember that’ include Such Tweet Sorrow, BAP’s document on Birmingham’s Creative Capital, the Big Culture Blog and a call for “more of the Simon Rattle effect”. Also, In Our Backyard looked interesting and Chris Bates made a video for Munchbreak’s Television:

Well, wonder no more, because those enterprising chaps at The Electric cinema have been busy making a fine selection of documentary videos which give a unique insight into the inner workings of the cinema, from the lost art of cinema organists, to the journey into the third dimension.

The clips have been lovingly crafted by the cinema’s owner and lead guitarist Tom Lawes, and I found myself absorbed by them, so set a few minutes aside to give them a watch. All the videos are on the cinema’s Youtube channel, but as a taster, here’s The Electric’s guide to 35mm projection:

There’s a couple of other film showings earlier in the day with 65 or so tickets left for each. Those filums are:

• 2.30pm – Twenty Four Seven
• 4.30pm – Big Fish

The date is Thurs 28 Jan, the venue is The Electric and the people to thank are those at The Bullring. To grab yourself a ticket you’ll need to RSVP to holly.ryland-jones@bullring.co.uk and say which film you want to see.

Incidentally, thanks to Jez Turner who suggested Twenty Four Seven when I was asking around for suggestions for feelgood films.

There are 120 free seats available for Amelie at 7.15pm with some food and refreshments thrown in too.

If you’d like to come along then just RSVP to holly.ryland-jones@bullring.co.uk. Sorry, all places are gone now!