A Penarth community centre is launching its first cinema next month and is almost at capacity for its first showing.

The Lower Penarth Community Centre on Brockhill Way is opening its first community cinema on Saturday, February 10.

Trustees from the Lower Penarth Community Association announced the news after previously reporting that they would like to expand the range of activities to benefit the local community.

The community hall was three-quarters to its capacity of 80 people at time of writing, as 60 have already got tickets to the launch night.

Jon Dewis, chair of the association said: “What the trustees thought was to try and expand the use of the hall for our community as that’s what the hall is there for.

“Whilst we have a lot of bookings during the week both during the day and the evenings, we have a facility to put on this cinema, so we thought we would dip our toe into the water and see how it will go, and so far, tickets are going very quickly.”

The community centre was granted an alcohol licence late last year, Mr Dewis told the Penarth Times that they had to apply for the licence as they plan to serve a glass of wine to people on arrival at the community cinema.

“We got an alcohol licence not to become a pub as that is the last thing we want, as we are a community-based organisation.

“The licence is so that we can give people a free glass of wine when they arrive to try and create an atmosphere that is why we got the licence.”

The community centre has seen a great deal of investment over the past few years from enhanced security, professional audio/visual systems, and CCTV.

Due to the installation of the audio system, they are now able to collaborate with a local film company to show both old and new films.

The first film that will be shown is A Haunting in Venice (12A), starring Kenneth Branagh as Agatha Christie’s famous detective Hercule Poirot.

Admission to the cinema is free and people will be welcomed with a free glass of wine when doors open at 7pm before the movie starts at 7:30pm.