Welsh Chew Valley Cinema-Dannie Abse

Content
The poem opens in the glitz and glamour of a Hollywood movie, before disintegrating into the return to the cinema audience's dull, mundane lifestyle. Set in the 1930s, this poem explores the effect of commercialism on a deprived society.

Analysis
The immediate contrast of the beautiful 'palace' with the dirty 'slums' gives an impression of unattainable ideals against dull realities. The changing tone of language from the opening stanza to the end reflects the 'sinking' feeling within the characters, disappearing into that 'familiar malice'- that monotonous routine that haunts them, the antithesis of that 'palace'.

The Economic Depression of the 1930s is evident in the 'wheezing' asthma of the audience, a chronic coughing that's masked by the 'bright' film music that runs above it. This dream-like, utopian picture that is painted to the audience is seen in the superficial, 'glycerine' tears as well as in the imagery of the 'poor, ragged Goldilocks' associated with fairy tales and optimism. Through the italic, 'no holes in his socks', we see the audience's jealous frustration that perhaps Abse is attacking, in this sense the poem can be seen as a critique of modern advertisement for stirring such resentful materialistic ideals. This is emphasised in the description of them 'shoeless on mecca carpet', the deprived state of the people against the religious paradise, a symbol of our idolisation of possessions we cannot have.

'THE END' not only accentuates the end of the film, but the end of that short-lived fantasy and we are left with the pivotal image of the 'striking of the small towns clock'. The loud, persistent 'striking' is a reminder of the monotonous pace of their life, revolved around time as oppose to the limitless freedoms of the film. The town is 'small' and insignificant against the mighty 'Mecca' lives of riches and with the final image of the clock comes a reminder of time, a dull waiting for death with no sense of living in between. Abse perhaps chose the literal cinema visit to stand as a metaphor for the idealistic, fantastical images of advertisements that tease us everyday, a reminder of what we are lacking and potentially what we most have, inviting a grotesque thirst for materialism psychologically but also physically in the increase of rioting in recent years.