Robin Priestley16 October 2007
Twenty-eight-year-old Robin Priestley is Creative Manager of the Prince Charles Cinema in London. He's also a Space Hijacker and skateboarder.
What makes your cinema different?
Part of our mission is to provide cheap cinema. At the moment, we're also screening a Friends of the Earth curated film once every two months.
Are you showing our Big Ask ad too?
Four times a day - we stick it on before each viewing. We've also got campaign postcards at the box office.
How green is the Prince Charles?
We take paper and bottles to the recycling banks. We're replacing the bulbs with energy-efficient lightbulbs. And we're trying to get our uniforms made from Fair Trade or, failing that, organic cotton.
Just who are Space Hijackers?
We're an art activist bunch of troublemakers.
We encourage people to use public space: if you don't use it then it begins to disappear. Encouraging cultural diversity as opposed to some kind of global monoculture.
Robin Priestley on the purpose of Space Hijackers
What capers do you get up to?
We've done absolutely everything from huge parties on the Circle line of the London Underground to a cricket match on Parliament Square.
We've done Ann Summers parties for arms dealers! We handed out leaflets saying 'You're obviously into big phallic objects - maybe you're trying to compensate for something in the bedroom'.
And we even held a sex toy party for arms dealers on the train to the Defence Systems and Equipment International (DSEi) arms fair.
Where do you skateboard?
Around the City - at the weekend it's beautiful. Big marble steps and blocks and no suits. I've broken my arm a couple times, smashed my teeth in.
What makes you angry?
Arms dealers, obviously, in East London. Party politics. Corporate spin. Corporate greenwash. Esso. George Bush. The small things.
What makes you happy?
There's a lot of people looking for ways of being more sustainable, more responsible. There's definitely hope.
© Robin Priestley
