Double the Fun

Last Friday night, Traveller, hubbie and their old and new flatties went to Summer Screen at Somerset House. Now if you've been reading this blog for a while you may remember us going to the same event last year. Well, this year was a completely different experience! Last year: it rained, it poured and it rained some more. This year: sunny, sunny and then a gorgeous moon and star-lit evening. T doesn't think she has seen the stars since last being home in Australia (or perhaps she just isn't observant) but, whatever the case, it was lovely to see an almost full moon and some shooting stars!

Summer Screen at Somerset House is exactly what it sounds like; watching films at the ever-beautiful Somerset House. This year we were in for a real treat - we were watching a double bill of Cool Hand Luke (with the late and ever-so-dreamy Paul Newman) and Road House (a movie deemed so bad that it's actually really good!).

The gates opened at 7pm and Londoners from far and wide brought in their picnic blankets and their picnic food and enjoyed the atmosphere while a DJ played movie music (old and new). While the ticket prices are not like those of the Scoop, the atmosphere is incomparable. When the DJ played 'Born to Hand Jive' - crowd members were up on their feet and 'hand jiving' just like Sandy and Danny.

T loved Cool Hand Luke. It is one of those really classic films with a wonderful storyline, great acting and some really famous scenes - the best one being where Luke (Newman's character) eats 50 eggs in a one hour sitting. And, let's face it, Newman has more charisma than most actors on the screen today. It was magic!

Road House was an entirely different story. While Patrick Swayze can dance and Road House confirmed he can fight (and perform strange martial arts moves by the river), his acting is somewhat limited. T has to admit though, that he probably did his best with an outrageous and far-fetched script. This is where the atmosphere kicked in. The entire audience, who had been completely silent for Cool Hand Luke, were now letting loose. Everybody seemed to be very familiar with the film and were whooping when they knew their favourite scene was coming. They were even shouting out the names of the characters after particularly funny or violent scenes: 'Come on, Dalton!' or 'Here comes Wade Garrett!' This made for a very entertaining viewing of a classic 80s film which was so bad that it was, indeed, good.