Simon's Story - a MediCinema Manager
Before coming to MediCinema I was a writer and comedian. For 10 years I appeared on BBC1’s Saturday morning TV shows Going Live! and Live & Kicking with my comedy partner Trev Neal, doing daft sketches and generally messing about. Patients and staff in the hospital occasionally recognise me from those days and throw our old catchphrases at me. It’s quite surreal to visit a ward and have a patient say “swing your pants!” or “We Don’t Do Duvets!”
In late 2016 I was looking for a change in my life and in work. Writing can be a lonely occupation. I wanted to get out more and be amongst people. I said to my friends that I wanted a job that would be good for my soul. I was looking for something in the charity sector, or the NHS, when a friend told me about an advert for a job as a cinema manager running a cinema in a hospital… and I thought that job doesn’t exist! A cinema, in a hospital? Really!?
My first thought was, I won’t get that job, what do I know about managing cinemas? But thanks to the encouragement of my friend I gave it a go! At the age of 54 I was applying for my first ever ‘proper’ job. I put my CV together, a cover letter and then was thrilled to be invited for an interview - only my second interview since university!
I did as much preparation for the interview as I could and then, the night before, I thought to myself, give yourself a break, relax a little. So I went to the cinema! I love cinema so much! I watched Hidden Figures and afterwards I asked to speak to the cinema manager. They thought I wanted to make a complaint, but no; I just wanted to quiz them about running a cinema. So much for my break.
I’m delighted to say I got the job. I was thrilled and just a little astonished; after all this was a radical career change, but I think it suits me just perfectly. I’ve learnt the nuts and bolts – I can ingest a DCP and load a KDM (don’t ask! Tech talk!) – but at the heart of the job is the interaction with people; with our team of nurses and volunteers and, of course, our patients and their families and friends.
What an exciting job to be going into! There’s only 5 of us in the country managing MediCinemas (though watch this space – we’re going to double that over the next few years!) What an honour to be part of such a small and exclusive team. I find myself amazed day to day to say I run a MediCinema.
On my first day of work in the CW+ MediCinema at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital we screened… Hidden Figures! Can you believe it! Serendipity! I love this film for many reasons, and all our patients love it too. So much so that we bring it back every year, as part of our Black History Month screenings. (At least, that’s my excuse. I’d be happy to show it every week!)
Working in a hospital can, at times, be moving and sad.
One of our 94-year-old patients always came to the cinema in her bed - she’d come and watch anything and everything. She taught me not to presume what a patient may or may not like. When I visit the wards and liaise with the nurses as to which patients can come to the cinema I always ask who can come, not who’d like to come; not taking for granted that one film is for one type of person and another for another. (When I started, I shadowed Glenn, one of the managers at Guys & St Thomas’ Hospital. I’ll always remember the patient who practically shouted at us “I don’t care what you’re showing I just want to get off this ward!”) The last film this patient saw was Fast and Furious 8. I can still see her, in her bed holding on to the rails, her face lit up, as if she was there racing alongside Vin Diesel. This was a Tuesday evening screening. By our next screening on Thursday she had sadly passed away. I’d only been in the job a couple of months and this was the first time I’d dealt with a patient being there, and then not. I was a little tearful, and I had to take a few moments to compose myself. But we’re in a hospital and in amongst sadness there’s joy too; people getting better, babies being born.
One patient, David Gant, came to the CW+ MediCinema for many months in his bed. When he was better, he came back to pay a visit, and it was just great to see him up on his feet again, and with a spring in his step. David was so keen to share what MediCinema meant to him he’s since become a Patient Ambassador for the charity. He spoke at our yearly Halloween fundraising event and a packed room of fiendish and drunk ghouls just went pin-drop quiet, captivated by his every word.
As one patient, Tara, once said to me; “I’m not being funny, but if I didn’t have the cinema on my two-month stay, my cheese would have slipped off my cracker.”
We’re all missing out at the minute on that one thing that MediCinema does so well - bringing people together. Isolation is hard to deal with, it’s a dreadful thing in hospital and it’s a dreadful thing that many are experiencing now. What we do is bring people together, we have to ensure that carries on after this and we can once again offer the MediCinema experience to people in hospital.
When I think of MediCinema at its very best, I think of Yasmin’s story. Yasmin was coming to the cinema regularly, and she absolutely loved it. Yasmin was young, yet she knew she was nearing the end of her life. It was a Tuesday, and we were screening First Man that night. On my ward rounds Yasmin pulled me aside and said how sad she was that she would miss Bohemian Rhapsody on Thursday; a film she had really been looking forward to, but Yasmin had just been told they were moving her into the hospice on Wednesday.
We spoke to 20th Century Fox and they were heroic! They got the film delivered to us two days ahead of our scheduled screening. But also – at incredibly short notice – we needed a nurse to sit in on the screening. Emails were flying around, going to 90 nurses. Without a nurse we just couldn’t go ahead, and it wasn’t looking likely. But then one of our senior nurses freed up a nurse from the ward who came and sat in – on a voluntary basis - to make it happen. Everyone from head office to the film industry to our nurses managed to make this happen for Yasmin and her friends and family. When it came to Live Aid at the end of the movie, they were all waving their hands in the air to We Are the Champions (Doris, our nurse, too!). I stood at the back of the cinema and thought - this is what we do best.
Tariq, Yasmin’s brother, invited me along to her funeral. I accepted his kind invitation and Tariq introduced me to everyone with a warmth and kindness that made me feel like I was family. Towards the end of the service the celebrant talked of MediCinema and how much it helped Yasmin during her time in hospital. And as we left the chapel Queen sang Radio Ga Ga. That really got to me. I’m just the man who puts the films on, but I do see the profound effect of what we do: That Yasmin got to see Bohemian Rhapsody on that day… well… it was just amazing.
It’s so easy for us to take a trip to the cinema for granted, but at MediCinema we get to see the impact this can have on those who can’t take it for granted. For patients and their families, we’re helping create special moments for them to spend together, and we’re helping give them lasting memories.
If someone were to ask me what MediCinema can add beyond a normal trip to the cinema… Well… let’s say you’re looking at the movie reviews and the film you want to see has 3 stars… seeing it at a MediCinema makes it a 4 star movie! We add a star to any film! It’s such a unique and memorable experience that you just can’t replicate anywhere else. It’s movie magic.
Another amazing story – one of our lovely volunteers has a TheraPaws dog, Bacon. Bacon visits the wards regularly to meet the patients and so I got in touch with Infection Control to see if Bacon could come the cinema too. I was so thrilled when he was given the go ahead. Bacon’s been to see all of our dog films – A Dog’s Purpose, A Dog’s Way Home, The Call of the Wild, The Secret Life of Pets. When he came to “see” A Dog’s Journey one of our paediatric patients was too poorly to come along for the film sadly, but he did come along to the foyer beforehand to meet Bacon and say hello. We then arranged a private screening for the patient and his dad when he was feeling a little better on the Friday. He of course hoped Bacon would come along again, but I had to explain “Bacon is a very busy dog.”
When it came to Friday, and they all came up to the cinema with the nurse, guess who was in the foyer, hiding! Bacon sat with the patient the whole film through. He didn’t move one bit, the two of them watching it side-by-side. There’s a breakfast scene in the film where they’re cooking bacon! And someone exclaims “Who’s dropped the bacon?!” and then they’re all saying “BACON! BACON!” And Bacon the dog sat bolt upright, looking around! I thought he was going to jump right through the screen, right into the arms of Dennis Quaid! Good boy Bacon!