Despite dirty windows and a bad film, drive-in cinemas offer pure luxury
“I know this is a family-friendly environment,” said Andrew Maxwell, surveying the rows of cars angled towards him in the grassy enclosure. “But there’s a strong dogging vibe as well.”
I can’t say illicit public sexual activity was the first thing that sprung to mind when I’d pulled into the @TheDriveIn site an hour or so beforehand: I was thinking more car boot sale. But there is something so alien about the concept of the drive-in cinema in Britain that the mind can’t help but turn to unglamorous local analogues.
In the United States and Australia, two nations with proud car cultures and bristly libertarian streaks, drive-in cinemas flourished the middle of the last century, as places where couples, families and friends could all go to enjoy the latest Hollywood releases – together, but separate – in their neatly arrayed convertibles and utes. But in the UK it’s never been our style: we’re happy enough to muddle along together, and drive Vauxhall Astras. Yet the new social distancing regimes have markedly increased the drive-in cinema’s appeal – and as such, a number have begun to spring up around the UK this summer, some run by longstanding outdoor cinema operations and others brand new.
The Suzuki-sponsored @TheDriveIn falls into the latter group – and I will admit that a sense of foreboding set in when the press night screening, at the cinema’s first tour stop in Blackheath, south London, was switched at the last minute from Back to the Future, one of the greatest films ever made, to Grease, one of the worst. (Other films on the programme include Toy Story, Jaws, the Cooper-Gaga edition of A Star Is Born and, naturally, Cars.)
Fortunately, though, the film is only part of the package. The £35-per-vehicle charge also covers some preambular rounds of registration plate bingo and ‘car-aoke’ – if you’ve made it this far through the pandemic without hearing anything from The Greatest Showman, tough luck – and also, on Friday evenings, some comedy to help set the mood. Drive-in stand-up feels even less natural than drive-in cinema, not least because the performer effectively has to build rapport with the forecourt of a car dealership. But the press-night acts, Andrew Maxwell and Ivo Graham, both took the challenge in their stride.
“There’s something poignant about hearing the traffic go by,” Maxwell mused, after delivering one (very funny) line to a battery of unblinking windscreens. “It’s almost more than death.”
Such is the new normal, though – and after a few minutes of acclimatisation I did find myself chuckling heartily along, and also feeling oddly moved by the sound of laughter emanating in sync from vehicles across the site. House rules insist that @TheDriveIn attendees should remain in their cars at all times unless using the facilities: a bank of widely spaced Portaloos at the side of the venue, plus numerous hygiene stations dispensing hand sanitiser of an absolutely nostril-scorching vintage.
Food and soft drinks are available – all context-appropriate burgers, chicken wings and so on – but must be ordered remotely via a web app, and is brought to your numbered bay by masked waiting staff. Delivery times were a little erratic – my ice cream arrived 15 minutes before the starter – but the sheer exhilaration of eating something I hadn’t cooked myself more than made up for it.
Grease itself commenced at 8.15pm, shown on a 645-square-foot high-resolution LED screen rather than projected in the traditional drive-in style, which meant that even on a bright July evening the image was vivid and crisp, if not quite cinema-rich. (Sound is supplied via an FM radio signal.) By the time the film’s only worthwhile song, Beauty School Dropout, had begun, the summer sky had turned the deep and reassuring pink of Frenchy’s hair.
How objectively swanky this all feels will vary wildly from car to car: after seven years of ferrying around our children, our 17-year-old Ford Focus would make the grottiest fleapit look like Tom Cruise’s private screening room. But even amid the trodden-in Fruit Wriggles, there was something unimaginably luxurious about spending an entire evening with hundreds of strangers enjoying themselves in unison, even if the thing they were enjoying was Grease. The film was awful. The sharing of it was bliss. I just wish I’d cleaned the windows first.
Touring until Sunday 4 October. For a full list of films and locations visit atthedrive.in
