Musical Matinee Club: Brigadoon

Brigadoon was the last screening in the current Musical Matinee Club season, and we went out with a bang!

We dived fully into the Scottish theme for this ‘Everybody-Friendly’ screening of Brigadoon, kitting audience members out in tartan sashes. They looked fantastic! For a sensory treat, we added a little lavender to our mini heather bouquets to wear as “boutonnieres”. The whole auditorium smelt wonderful, especially when we waved them!

Every audience member also had some comical deer antlers made from modelling balloons, which we pointed to every time any of the actors in the film used the word “dearie”, and especially during a song called Waiting For My Dearie.

We held orange napkins aloft when they sang Down On MacConnacy Square, we waved them to replicate Cyd Charise’s underskirt as she danced, and scrunched them up to create “flame torches” during the search scene.

There are some wonderful song and dance numbers during this film, but by a long stretch, the best dancing I witnessed was during our dance break – we danced to Donald Where’s Your Troosers and Shang a Lang in keeping with the Scottish theme. We had an absolute blast!

Roll on the next season!

Musical Matinee Club returns with Singin’ In The Rain!

Musical Matinee Club’s fabulous hostess Suzy Harvey recaps the glorious return of the disability and dementia-friendly film series

It’s official. I LOVE the Musical Matinee Club!

After a break of about two years, 160 of us came in out of the actual rain, and gathered in the auditorium to watch Singin’ In The Rain. It was a delight to see so many faces of folk who used to come, and to welcome so many new audience members.

I dressed myself as part Gene Kelly, part Debbie Reynolds, and we all sported our very own plastic rain macs (made from yellow bin bags)!

We each had a goody bag of props to use during the film, lovingly loaded by our incredible volunteers. Each time the actors tap danced on the screen, we tapped some spoons together to create the sound effects. We wore feathers in our hair, threw streamers in celebration, waved lengths of toilet paper in the air, sang out loud and danced along throughout.

Mid-film, during our dance break, we danced to Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head and It’s Raining Men and a wonderful audience member gave us a very encouraging critique and a score of 9 out of 10.

It was such a delight to be back, in the company of such committed staff and volunteers, and playful, open-hearted audience members.

Roll on 26th November for Funny Face!

Talking about Lawrence

LAMain

A keen audience of David Lean fans gathered on Sunday, for a special matinee showing of his iconic film ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ – and although I was there to introduce the movie as guest speaker, it was soon clear from a show of hands, that I was going to be preaching to the already converted. Almost every one there had seen the film before, and so it was with the sense of sharing a passion rather than introducing one, that I began to talk about Lean, his film and its links to the current, Cycles of Radical Will, exhibition. With both Shaun Gladwell and David Lean exploring identity, the tradition of the romantic landscape and the lone figure within it – there was much to discuss, and then with the music of Maurice Jarre’s famous score, beginning to reverberate around the De La Warr auditorium, we finally l settled down to immerse ourselves in the sweeping desert landscapes of Lean’s film.