This evening’s cinema screenings at the Leith Walk police box will take place inside, owing to inclement weather conditions (a superabundance of wind).
The performances – which complement the fifth annual Edinburgh Short Film Festival – will run from 7.30–8.30pm.
Featured will be some of the best short films from the 2014 ESFF, and they will be watchable in conditions of considerable snugness for free.
Similar weather-dependent screenings will run at the same time tomorrow evening.
Edinburgh police boxes – unlike the common or garden Time and Relative Dimensions in Space ones of popular imagination – were especially designed by City Architect E.J. MacRae in the 1930s to be smaller on the inside than the outside.
In this way, large numbers of constables who might otherwise obstruct local pavements during night-time pea-soupers could be stored safely and economically out of the way until needed.
Manufacture was achieved by making the exterior first, asking police officers to lean with their backs to the walls, and then quickly turning the whole structure inside-out before fitting a secure door.
