‘Get hip to cin-enema-tainment!’
This was intended to be a monthly club night to celebrate all that is good about the cinema.
There was music, performed extracts from theatre, TV shows and films, short films and cabaret. I compered, as Hollywood love-child, Otto von Blotto.
The shows involved a lot of hard work and research, with a large number of cast and crew – not unlike a film shoot. Similar to my experiences of writing, producing and directing the shorts I’ve made, too much responsibility was on my shoulders due to financial limitations. It needed to be picked up rapidly by a sponsor, but it wasn’t.
In the end, there were only two shows – Peace And Woar! and the Christmas show – Christmas! Humbug! A third show, Ice Spy, scheduled for the end of January, had to be shelved as I was losing too much money!
I remember the shows fondly and how it all managed to come together on the night. The South London Pacific tiki bar, with its large, Easter Island heads by the entrance, was the perfect quirky venue for a night like this.
I smile at the memory of Avid Bowie’s rendition of Heroes, whilst squatting in a barrel, ‘buried’ under a sandy-coloured bed cover in a nod to DB’s character Major Jack Celliers in Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence!
Thank-you to all the cast and crew involved.
I still have the scripts and sometimes wonder how the shows would go down with audiences now…..