THE 40th birthday celebrations continue at Lighthouse, Poole’s Centre for the Arts with a look back to some cinema classics from the eighties.

The films, which will be shown throughout May and June, have tickets priced at just £2 each – the same price as they were in 1988 when the iconic arts venue was celebrating its tenth year.

On June 3 you can see Who Framed Roger Rabbit? The live action/animated film directed by Robert Zemeckis. Based on Gary K Wolf’s novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit? the film stars Bob Hoskins and Christopher Lloyd. Set in Hollywood during the late 1940s (where animated characters and people co-exist) the story follows Eddie Valiant, a private detective who must exonerate ‘Toon’ (cartoon character) Roger Rabbit, who is accused of murdering a wealthy businessman.

Dance comedy film Hairspray screens on June 10. Set in Baltimore in 1962, the story revolves around self-proclaimed “pleasantly plump” teenager Tracy Turnblad (Ricki Lake) as she pursues stardom as a dancer on a local TV show and rallies against racial segregation. Only a moderate success on its initial theatrical release, it attracted a much larger audience on home video in the 1990s, eventually becoming a cult classic. In 2002 it was adapted into a musical, winning eight Tony awards.

The 1988 season comes to a close with Italian drama Cinema Paradiso, the winner of the Academy Award for best Foreign Language film. Giuseppe Tornatore’s loving homage to the cinema tells the story of Salvatore, a successful film director returning home for the funeral of an old friend who was the projectionist at the local cinema throughout his childhood.

To book, call 01202 280000 or visit lighthousepoole.co.uk Details for films from the nineties and noughties will be revealed later in the year.