Pussycat, pussycat, where have you been?

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 09 December 2006 00:01:24

Well, to start with I've been to w*rk this morning, and then to our Christmas lunch.

But I've been saying for ages how I wanted to see the film 'The Queen' and haven't got round to it. Well, the last cinema in London showing it now seems to be the Odeon Mezzanine in Leicester Square, and I was now in the West End at 5pm, and Spike was out for the evening at his works Christmas do (which means I am now waiting in for the sound of someone attempting to fit a mysteriously bendy key, on which the teeth have strangely transmogrified, into the elusive hole in the front door. I will then open the door and probably be told I'm gorgeous, several times).

So I thought an early-evening film viewing might be more fun than grappling with a rush-hour journey home. I have to say, I found the Odeon Mezzanine quite shabby for the not-so-shabby cost of a ticket, and the numbered seats meant I ended up - urggh! - sitting next to someone, even though there were plenty of spare seats (Steve can tell a good tale about when The Nutter at the Cinema sits next to you). All that needs to be said about the ludicrously overpriced and quite unnecessarily HUUGE cups of Pepsi has been said many times, better than I could, so I'll leave that. Let's just say that next time there's a film I want to see, I'll try and get my butt in gear to see it while it's still on at a local cinema (for local people).

So, the film then. For those who haven't heard of it, it's about the Queen (as you would expect), the royal family and the newly-elected Prime Minister in the days following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. I had had some qualms about whether dealing with the lives of real people who are still in the public eye would be in bad taste, but really I thought no one came off badly. I felt the film didn't take sides, it poked gentle fun at everyone without really attacking anyone, with to my mind only one dislikable character (see below - it wasn't Prince Philip, surprisingly!) The actors playing characters we know (the Queen, Prince Philip, Prince Charles, the Queen Mother, Tony and Cherie Blair), worked really well, as did the mix of real and engineered footage from those memorable days of 1997. I don't know whether it depends on your views before you start, I heard the lady next to me whisper to her partner that you could tell 'everything Tony Blair says is play-acting, he doesn't mean any of it', but I thought he came over as perfectly sincere and caring, while keeping an eye on his image. I liked the Blair's comfy, muddly, middle-class dual-career household, although I wasn't convinced by Cherie serving up fishfingers! Blair's right-hand man, Alistair Campbell, was a worthy panto-season villain, making you want to go 'boo-hiss' whenever he opened his mouth (which was often).

And now, here comes another nice shiny weekend. And it sounds as though the cat has climbed behind the bath panel again.