Cinemas and Cinema-Going in the United Kingdom: Decades of Decline, 1945–65. By Sam Manning

Sam Manning’s Cinemas and Cinema-Going in the United Kingdom: Decades of Decline, 1945–65 is a much-needed contribution to the growing literature that places British cinema-going and cinema within broader social, cultural, political, economic, and spatial contexts. Informed by New Cinema History theory and methods, Manning interrogates differences between regional and national trends in cinema-going and exhibition. This includes analyses of cinemas and their management, social practices of cinema-going, experiences of cinema-goers, and the meanings attached to visiting the pictures. Manning argues that cinema-going practices were more ‘heterogeneous’ than previous scholars thought (p. 2). By focusing upon case studies of cinema-going in predominantly working-class areas of Belfast and Sheffield, Manning demonstrates the benefits of microhistory to historical studies of cinema-going. Through numerous and carefully considered archival and press sources as well as oral histories, Manning reads against the grain of existing national narratives that shape our understanding of the changing relationship...