From all reports, the Lighthouse Cinema’s showing of the outlandish Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense (1984) a couple of months back was a huge success. I’ve heard great stories about a dance floor organically emerging in front of the screen around half way through the show.
However, this was by no means the first time that this film has been shown in a Dublin cinema. In 1986, Stop Making Sense was shown every weekend night for nearly twenty weeks in The Ambassador Theatre.
Stop Making Sense poster
Journalists, writers and music critics such as Dave Fanning, Graham Linehan, Jim Carroll, Donald Clarke and Gerard Byrne have all spoken on the significance of these last night showings.
Ciaran Carty in The Sunday Independent (10/03/85) first brought attention to the film’s showing and urged his readers not to “miss it” as it was “only booked for a week”. (As far as I can work out, the film was shown on March 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14 in 1985 and then reappeared on January 14 1986 where it played every Friday and Saturday night until May 1986. That sound right?)
The Irish Times, 08 Mar 1985.
Dave Fanning in The Irish Times (30/07/86) wrote that the film had the effect of “transforming the Ambassador into a disco”.
Graham Linehan in his blog has admitted:
I went to see ‘Stop Making Sense’ every week for about fifteen weeks during its run at the Ambassador cinema in Dublin. They had to hire bouncers to stop people dancing, and when David Byrne ran round the stage, we ran round the Ambassador. Ah, me.
Jim Carroll (I.T. 11/12/03) also remembers the “couple of hundred party people” who used to “run laps around … the cinema” whenever David Byrne did something similar.
Simon Judge mentioned in a recent Le Cool piece that “bouncers were hired to curb the pogoing of the mental heads” while Gerard Byrne in Frieze Magazine said that the “madness … usually ended with police intervention”.
Donald Clarke (I.T. 15/09/06) said the experience of these late night screenings was “akin to actually seeing the band in action”.
Still from the film
Dave Fanning summed up things quite well (I.T. 16/12/8) when he said that this sold out run of shows:
…provided one of the most memorable yet unsung highlights of the Irish rock decade and gave a whole new meaning to the phrase of ‘dancing in the aisles’
Things came full circle when David Byrne played The Ambassador, which had then been turned into a music venue, in July 2002.
Do you have any memories of going to see the film in The Ambassador?
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Donal
Ciarán
Sam
Come Here To Me! 
Used to go with mate on alternate w/ends after inebriation in the Pygmalion(now The Hairy Lemon) or Bartley Dunne’s(knocked down and now”Break for the Border in it’s place).”The Afro/Faces” Aston Place,other w/ends.
I went about six times and would have gone more but I lived in the suburbs and there was no Nitelink then! I remember Dave Fanning marching up to the projectionist one night and demanding he turn the music up. When I was a guest on Dave’s radio show a few years back to talk about my favourite album, it had to be Stop Making Sense. I was a music writer with the Herald at the time and, as you can see, it almost became a club for those of us on the periphery of the music business, in radio and print media. I do remember a regular crowd and, yes, it always was more like a live gig than a late-night movie. Happy days indeed.
No. But I do have memories of watching this on YouTube:
Yes, it was great fun and turned me onto Talking Heads who I still listen to regularly
Saw them play live in Philadelphia and saw the movie in the Ambassador, in some ways the Ambassador was much more fun…
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Was at the late night premier, the Sunday Tribune had free tickets available so got a couple and as they were black and white promptly photocopied them and about a dozen of us got in . It was just like a real gig with six packs , shmokin’ doobies and dancing like lunatics , Brilliant craic.! Still one of my fave bands ever.
I played at a Battle Of The Bands in the Ambassador after that. By then the film was “Absolute Beginners”. Gigs were great, the film not so much….
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i remember going to it in 1985 dancing in the aisles alright great time