For Jem Poole, the young protagonist of my novel Poole of Light, that first encounter is a moment of quiet astonishment.

He slips into a newly built picture house in 1913 – a miner’s son in scuffed boots, wide-eyed and uncertain. The foyer smells of fresh wood, with sconces flickering along the walls. He follows the music drifting from beyond a curtain. And then, like sunshine through stained glass, a shaft of light spills onto his jacket. On screen, a woman walks through a city taller than anything he’s ever imagined.

The world is black and white – and yet somehow more vivid than the one he knows. He doesn’t yet understand the story, but he knows it matters.

That sensation – half magic, half architecture – shaped not only Jem’s life, but the lives of countless others who stepped into cinemas during the subsequent decades of Britain’s cinema boom.

Come the 1920s, and the cinema foyer was never just a holding space – it was theatre in its own right, a stage that prepared audiences for the drama to come. Designers understood this well. A mirrored staircase suggested glamour; chandeliers and Art Deco lights whispered that you were somewhere important. Even the smallest suburban picture house offered poise – a sweep of carpet, a lit poster frame, the faint scent of wax on brass.

Years after that early childhood experience, Jem’s wife Cara is designing cinema interiors where colour, texture and atmosphere do more than decorate: they prepare the audience to feel. Her work reminds us that picture houses were not only places to watch films, but spaces where storytelling began, long before the opening credits.

Odeon cinemas turned this into a reality: sweeping modern lines, polished stone and mirrored foyers that felt as memorable as any feature. London’s Odeon Leicester Square (1937) still anchors premiere culture, while Odeon Swiss Cottage preserves the period silhouette outside – reminders that the architecture itself set the mood.

But architecture was only part of it. The people who ran the cinemas understood that audience engagement began long before the first scene. Managers devised loyalty schemes, organised talent contests and hosted charity nights. Usherettes in smart uniforms guided patrons to their seats, adding ritual and occasion to the visit. Saturday matinees promised fun, sweets and the thrill of serial cliffhangers. Competitions and prize draws kept audiences coming back, making cinema a community hub rather than a one-way spectacle.

In my story, Mabel represents this world. Working in the cinema business, she takes responsibility for audience engagement, crafting events to keep people returning. She knows that film alone isn’t enough; people need to feel recognised, welcomed – part of something. Through Mabel, I wanted to highlight the often overlooked labour of those – often women – who created the social fabric of cinema-going.

Ask anyone of a certain age about their first cinema trip and the details return with startling clarity. The film title might be long forgotten, but the feel of the seat fabric, the hush as the curtains opened, the anticipation as the house lights dimmed – these are harder to shake.

That kind of memory runs through Poole of Light. Jem’s journey begins with a single glimpse of moving light on a screen, but it’s the total experience – the sounds, the textures, the awe – that lodges in him and won’t let go. His story reflects something true for many: cinema was more than entertainment. It offered escape, wonder and possibility.

For a miner’s son or shop assistant, it was a place to sit beneath chandeliers, walk up marble stairs and believe – just for an evening – that life held more than hardship.

Today, many of those grand foyers and auditoriums have vanished, demolished or converted to other uses. Yet they live on in cultural memory – in photographs, films and the nostalgia they inspire. The hush before the curtains parted, the gleam of the staircase, the thrill of community in the dark – moments now recalled more through imagination than lived memory.

That’s why the golden age of cinema-going continues to fascinate me, both as a novelist and as a researcher. Cinemas were not just buildings; they were memory palaces in themselves – spaces that shaped who we were, how we dreamed and what we carried back into our ordinary lives.

The projector’s beam dazzled us, but the enchantment began earlier – in the foyers and staircases, in the careful work of managers and designers, in the shared anticipation of an audience about to be transported. Before the film even began, cinema had already woven us into its world.

First impressions linger longest. They remind us that cinema was never just a screen in the dark. It was an architecture of memory, a ritual of belonging and an experience that began the moment you stepped through the doors.