It’s been an Odyssey of a journey, but finally St Albans cinema is reopening its doors tonight for a lucky pick of volunteers and benefactors.

Owner of the long-awaited entertainment venue James Hannaway will welcome guests and introduce a film each night until Sunday.

The cinema will then close again to finish off any outstanding work, before being ready for a full opening on December 13.

In an online statement he apologised for not being able to invite everybody and urged people to hold on a little bit longer to experience the cinema: “Stay cool, it’s been a long time dead, now it’s alive again, and not going anywhere.

“Nor can it be threatened ever again. Nobody: no giant, mogul, big noise, superarsed multi can take it away from us again. St Albans now has the last standing independent single screen independent single fully restored cinema in all of Europe. And it is the St Albans city’s first decent, cinema for 19, 30, 50, 80 years!”