Cinema lovers kissed off?

As a multiplex in Birmingham reportedly bans kissing teenagers, BBC News Online looks at cinema etiquette.

Like travelling by plane or train, going to the cinema is an increasingly regulated activity.

Birmingham's Odeon cinema complex is reported to have banned couples from kissing too enthusiastically for fear the amorous display will offend parents with young children.

There has been 70 years of kissing at Odeon cinemas and long may it continue

Odeon spokesman

Odeon Birmingham's Michael McLean - who works in marketing, according to a spokesman for the cinema chain - has said kissing couples are found every day in the darkened seats.

Yet the Odeon spokesman denies there is a kissing ban at any of the chain's 141 multiplexes.

"There has been 70 years of kissing at Odeon cinemas and long may it continue. We are trying to get to the bottom of this."

Today, with some ticket prices pushing the £10 mark and more relaxed attitudes to public displays of affection, the time-honoured tradition of kissing in the back row can seem as dated as the 1970s hit of the same name by the Drifters.

However, Mr McLean has told reporters that the over-zealous film lovers typically attend matinee screenings.

"We believe it's when parents think their kids are at the library working," he said, adding that it was mainly Asian couples with nowhere else to go.

Noise pollution

Yet heads joined at the lips provoke less ire among fellow patrons than the piercing ring of a mobile phone or rowdy snack consumption.

"Now Russell Crowe is picking up this big sword..."

As about 27 million people in the UK own a mobile, phone etiquette - or rather the lack of it - has become a real bugbear.

Although most cinemas warn patrons to turn off their mobiles, none ban the phones outright - a move Caroline Westbrook, of the film magazine Empire, said would make more sense than banning kissing.

After all, nothing is more likely to provoke an outbreak of cinema rage than the inane bellow of: "Hello? I'm in the cinema..."

Even the most careful and painfully slow opening of a crisp packet - or a sweet wrapper - fails to reduce the amount of noise produced, according to a researcher in the United States.

Dr Eric Kramer, of Simon's Rock College in Massachusetts, recorded and analysed the sounds of sweet wrappers being opened. He found that all attempts to stop the rustle failed.

An independent cinema in Wellington, New Zealand, banned crisps from its snack bar in an attempt to spare film fanatics from the incessant rustlings of hard-to-open foil packets.

Only snacks deemed silent were suitable - but to mollify the hungry patrons of the art house cinema, the managers had to upgrade to gourmet ice creams and freshly made espresso.

Such posh nosh could be just the ticket to distract wannabe Romeos from - all together now - kissin' in the back row of the movies.