Man On His Mind: A Night with Eric Gibbins & The Buckfast Players
📅 Thursday 21 May 2026
🕐 8:15 pm
📍 Screen 1, Cinema City, Norwich
🎟️ Tickets: Free, but booking is essential due to limited seating. Reserve your seat here >>>
Overview:
Experience four rare short films from the 1950s and 1960s by Cambridge-based gay amateur filmmaker Eric Gibbins, presented by the East Anglian Film Archive and Queer Norfolk.
What to expect:
Each film explores love, secrecy, and longing with striking tenderness, from the romantic and remarkable depiction of a gay relationship in Man On His Mind, to the covert struggle of unfulfilled and fleeting connections depicted through heterosexual affairs in the other three films. With the help of actors and crew from his theatre troupe, The Buckfast Players, Gibbins evokes the dreams of those living hidden lives in mid-century Britain.
These films were rediscovered through the Community Curating Project, a collaboration between Queer Norfolk and the East Anglian Film Archive with support of the BFI Screen Heritage Fund, awarding National Lottery funding.
The Hour Before Love (1957): In a rural town, an affair between an older woman and a younger man faces the harsh glare of gossip and judgment.
The Innocent (1961): A young man returns with his girlfriend to his childhood home, where memories of first love and the pain of growing up resurface.
White Tie and Marmalade (c. 1961): A glamorous couple’s night out takes a surreal turn when car trouble leads to an encounter with a mysterious woman by the river.
Man On His Mind (c. 1958): After a breakup, DB is haunted by memories, until fate reunites him with his partner in a quietly groundbreaking embrace, set to “Unchained Melody”.
Admission
This event is free to attend, but spaces are limited. We recommend that you reserve a seat in advance. Let us know you’re coming >>>
Who are Queer Norfolk?
Queer Norfolk is a heritage charity, dedicated to digitally archiving the county’s LGBTQ+ past. Its mission is simple: find documents, objects, paintings, artefacts, photographs, landscapes, archaeology, films – anything that has a queer association – and add it to its digital, online archive.
Further Information and Accessibility
Venue: Cinema City, St Andrew’s Street, Norwich NR2 4AD.
Finding the venue: Cinema City is a short walk from Norwich Castle Meadow Bus Terminal, and a 15-minute walk from Norwich Train Station.
Parking: There are no parking facilities at the cinema. There are several on-street parking spaces for Blue Badge Holders opposite the cinema on Princes Street. The closest car park to the cinema is St Andrew’s Car Park on Duke Street, about 300 metres away.
Accessibility: The venue is fully accessible to customers with limited mobility including wheelchair users. Screen 1 is located on the 1st Floor accessible by lift. Dedicated wheelchair spaces are available. If you wish to reserve a wheelchair space, please let us know when booking.
Guide dogs and assistance dogs are welcome. If you wish to bring a dog to the screening, please let us know when booking so we can arrange an aisle seat. The venue will happily provide drinking water for your dog.
For further information and to let us know how we can make this event accessible for you, please contact us.