Mamma Mia enthusiasts filling cinemas across the UK to see the adapted stage musical and lip synch to Abba songs have helped Cineworld report better than expected third-quarter sales.

Thanks to a strong release schedule – which also included The Dark Knight, part of the Batman series, and Wall-E, a science fiction comedy – sales at the UK’s second-biggest cinema chain rose 2.2 per cent in the 43 weeks to October.