It was grey and overcast in London as I walked along Victoria Embankment by the river, dodging the runners and the selfie-taking tourists.

At Waterloo Bridge I crossed the Thames and headed to Tate Modern for the Expressionists exhibition, a celebration of Wassily Kandinsky, Gabriele Münter, and The Blue Rider Group which Kandinsky and Münter and their artist friends created in Munich in the early years of the 20^th century.  

The deep, bold, vibrant colours of many of the paintings on display contrasted with the flat grey London backdrop outside.

Highlights of the exhibition included Kandinsky’s ‘Murnau with Church I’ (1910), with its church tower heaving into view from an abstract mass of rich colours; the weirdly hypnotic elongated geometric forms of Lyonel Feininger’s ‘Gelmeroda III’ (1913) in a much more subdued palette than most of the rest of the exhibition; Gabriele Münter’s ‘Kandinsky and Erma Bossi at the Table’ (1912), an expressionist take on a cosy domestic scene; the molten lava eyes of Marianne Werefkin’s ‘Self-Portrait’ (1910); and Franz Marc’s fabulous ‘Deer in the Woods II’ (1912), the deer snuggled down resting in woods of amazing colours and forms and movement.

After visiting the exhibition, I scurried back along the river, crossed over at the Hungerford Footbridges and on the other side descended into the depths of Charing Cross train station for a meal at MOC Kitchen Vietnamese restaurant.

The set lunch of prawn spring rolls and pork belly with rice, washed down with a bottle of Hanoi beer, was very good.

From there I walked over to De Hems Dutch Café Bar on the edge of Chinatown where I had an IJwit Amsterdam wheat beer, great flavour and very refreshing.

De Hems stocks some great Dutch and Belgian beers, including some very tempting tripels, but today’s film beckoned so there wasn’t time to have anything apart from the IJwit.

Prince Charles Cinema was the venue for this evening’s film, ‘I Used to be Funny’, written and directed by Ally Pankiw, who also directed the first series of the wonderful ‘Feel Good’ starring Mae Martin and Charlotte Ritchie.

As happened on my previous visit to this cinema, before the film started we were treated to an entertaining John Waters recorded video asking punters in no uncertain terms to switch off their mobile phones. This evening’s audience duly complied.

Having seen the trailer for ‘I Used to be Funny’, I had high hopes for this indie film and it certainly delivered.

The two main characters are terrific – Rachel Sennott as standup Sam and Olga Petsa as troubled teen Brooke.

The supporting cast are great too, Sabrina Jalees (Paige) and Caleb Hearon (Philip) bringing a lot of warmth and humour to the film, letting Sam live with them rent-free whilst she gets back on her feet and supporting her through her recovery from a horrific experience.

There are plenty laughs in this film despite the hard trauma running through it.

For those of us on the outside, ‘I Used To Be Funny’ offers an affectionate glimpse into the world of standup comedy with all its bitchiness and camaraderie: ‘He’s still doing Frasier jokes’, Philip comments caustically at one point from backstage before a quick cut to the standup in question delivering a line about Niles’ predilections.

In an era of smug, bloated, 3-4 hour long Hollywood movies from major studios, it’s so refreshing to see an exquisitely crafted indie film like ‘I Used to be Funny’ telling a great story with wit and style, and carrying it off in one hour forty-five minutes. This film is so enjoyable I might go see it again in the next few days.

Related posts: ‘The Long Goodbye’, Prince Charles Cinema London; ‘Sightseers’, Prince Charles Cinema London

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I’d always assumed that the downstairs screen at Prince Charles Cinema would be a small poky basement affair.

So I wasn’t prepared for the splendour of the auditorium.

It’s got a good big screen and very high ceiling which gives the place a pleasingly cavernous feel.

There is a refreshing indie vibe to this cinema compared to the bland corporate chains that litter the rest of central London.

Clutching my plastic cup of excellent but pricey Trappiste beer, I settled into a comfortable velvet seat half-way back from the screen in eager anticipation of this evening’s film, director Robert Altman’s ‘The Long Goodbye’.

Before the film started, the pre-recorded message by John Waters, the ‘Pope of Trash’, commanding us to switch off our phones was very entertaining.

The fluidity of the opening scene is vintage Altman. Private eye Marlowe (Elliott Gould) and his pet cat weave their way through his apartment, Marlowe chuntering away to the cat in laconic fashion.

The steady flow of the scene and its mid-tempo pacing are sustained throughout the rest of this captivating slice of Marlowe’s gritty downbeat existence.

Elliot Gould makes a good Marlowe, cynical and world-weary but redeemed from out and out misanthropy by a wry, dry sense of humour.

He’s pretty true to the character of Marlowe in the Raymond Chandler novels, inhabiting a sleazy milieu which requires him to be thick-skinned and with low expectations of human behaviour.

Gould’s Marlowe meanders through the assignment he has taken on, bruised and battered by his encounters along the way but resilient enough to make it through. It’s an endearing performance.

Apart from Gould’s performance, it’s the soundtrack that sticks in my mind. Alternating between harsh jangling jazz and more mellow versions, it’s these hugely varied renditions of Johnny Mercer’s song ‘The Long Goodbye’ that set the mood in this wonderful melancholy film.

Related Post: ‘I Used To Be Funny’, Prince Charles Cinema London

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The barmaid’s attitude here in this Bloomsbury pub is less than welcoming.

My innocuous question, “Are you serving food?”, is met with barely a nod, accompanied by a look of disdain.

She has a sullen look on her face.

It’s as if my query is such a drag, such an imposition.

She doesn’t bother saying anything in reply to my question, so I press on regardless and read off what I want from the menu.

I am too hungry to be discouraged by her indifference.

The soup of the day is split pea soup and I order that plus lamb pie as the main course.

It’s around two in the afternoon and quiet in here, only a couple of other tables occupied.

I sit at a corner table and admire the pub’s wonderful interior.

The snob screens seem very small, so tiny that you wonder how they can offer any privacy at all.

The barmaid appears a few minutes later.

“If it’s all right with sir, I bring the soup and the main course at the same time”, she says, plonking the two courses down without waiting to hear from sir if this is ok.

For half a second I consider asking her to take the main course away and bring it when I have finished the soup, but I see the look on her face and decide against that.

From her demeanour thus far, I shudder to think what she might do to my main course if I tell her to take it away and then bring it back when I am ready for it.

When some other customers enter the pub a few minutes later, she is quite friendly towards them. They seem to know each other. Maybe it is just with strangers that it’s up with the barricades.

The soup is good and the lamb pie is delicious, with much better prepared vegetable accompaniments than you would normally get in a British pub. The drink is excellent too, a pint of St Austell Tribute, an ale with a beautiful golden colour.

As I’m eating, a couple come in.

The guy tells the barmaid, “I’ve made a resolution not to drink for the rest of this month”, which begs the question, what is he doing in a bar?

The other person working behind the bar is an older guy who is very friendly, the antithesis of the barmaid.

He asks how my pie is, and he has a very kindly manner in his dealings with all the other customers who are in here at the moment.

Hopefully his hospitable example will rub off on his less welcoming colleague. If I had been served by him when I came in, I would have had a much better feeling than the one I was left with by the surly barmaid.

Princess Louise in Holborn is my next destination.

It’s bustling and lively at 3.15 p.m. this Thursday afternoon. Amazing decor in this bar. Great booths along each side of the polished wooden bar counter.

I have a bottle of Taddy Porter, dark, big flavour, not too treacly.

There’s a beautiful clock in the carved wooden arch in the middle of the bar.

The Prince Charles Cinema, tucked up a side street off Leicester Square, is my cinema of choice today.

Famous in London for its exuberant singalong showings of films such as ‘Grease’, ‘The Sound of Music’, and ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’, the Prince Charles is also currently showing a ‘quote along’ showing of 2004 zombie romcom ‘Shaun of the Dead’.

The film that I have come to see today, the British psycho-comedy road trip Sightseers, fits nicely into the Prince Charles’ off-the-wall programming ethos.

This early evening showing takes place in the upstairs auditorium, a compact atmospheric space under a low ceiling with little pinpricks of light showing through like stars in a dark sky.

The low ceiling adds to the cosy intimate vibe.

It’s a sold-out showing and tonight’s audience is already in high spirits even before the trailers start.

I have a feeling ‘Sightseers’ is going to go down well with this boisterous crowd.

After the opening scenes in which we see Tina (Alice Lowe) and Chris (Steve Oram) getting ready to set off on their holiday romance, ‘Sightseers’ quickly and wonderfully turns into Natural Born Killers with an English Midlands accent.

Instead of the stereotypical paraphernalia of American road trip movies such as truckstops, honky tonks, and panoramic desert vistas, in ‘Sightseers’ there are dull caravan parks, a ride on a preserved tram with commentary provided by a uniformed tour guide, and a visit to a pencil museum.

In their delicious cringeworthiness, the film’s humdrum settings and tedious holiday activities evoke a spirit similar to the Alan Partridge tv series; the numbing banality of drab existence offset by doses of humour rooted in loneliness, awkwardness, and frustrated ambition.

‘Sightseers’ is certainly funny but it also conveys an air of existential desperation that leaves you uneasy even when you are laughing along with the funny bits.

The two stars of the film, Alice Lowe and Steve Oram, also wrote the screenplay and as you watch the film unfold you sense that this is a labour of love brilliantly realized.

Lowe and Oram play off each other wonderfully.

She is fragile and vulnerable but with a spirit that reaches perfect expression in the closing scene in which she and Oram are standing on top of a railway viaduct.

He, on the other hand, plays the assertive male, consumed by his obsessions, sinking steadily and irrevocably into vindictive madness directed towards a society that he feels has rejected him and his world view.

His deranged contribution to keeping Britain tidy is stomach-churning; his jealousy of higher-achieving individuals than himself plunges him into a murderous rage; and his contempt for Daily Mail readers encapsulates this film’s weirdly effective blend of humour and callousness.

The film contains some gore that not everyone will want to see. But with its precise characterization, brooding atmosphere and superb script, I think that ‘Sightseers’ will enjoy a well deserved cult status in years to come.

It’s fresh and breezy this evening after the film as I walk past Russell Square gardens in Bloomsbury.

At the edge of the gardens, near the railings where I pass by, I can hear someone saying to the person he is with, “I’m doing this for you, I’m doing this for us. I’m making a move.”

There is an urgent, almost pleading tone in his voice.

I walk on and don’t hear how that anguished conversation ends.

Related Posts: ‘I Used To Be Funny’, Prince Charles Cinema London; ‘Surviving Life’, Nova Cinema Brussels

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