EVEN though it wasn't a major charity do, there was certainly a feeling in the Savoy on Thursday night that the Irish premiere of Some Mother's Son was a major event.
Limos bumper to bumper outside the cinema, camera crews inside filming the arrival of the stars and most unusually - just about all the lead actors in the movie turned up. The invite, oddly enough, stated "neat dress", making you wonder exactly what shabby kit the movie distributors expected people to wear? In the end it was a very smart screening that felt distinctly like a family party. When the titles went up, director Terry George took to the stage and introduced his "film family", saying that despite the trauma and drama on screen (and he wasn't exaggerating, as the stunned silence in the audience at the end showed) "it was an easy film to make thanks to the people involved.
Bounding down the steps to join a glamorous looking Fionnula Flanagan on stage, Helen Mirren, wearing a flame red sleeveless dress and matching cardi, kicked off her red shoes and said that the film's major financier, Castle Rock, was to be specially thanked for being brave enough to put its money behind such a movie. "Remember that's the company that financed Striptease - it just shows you the strange nature of American film making," she said.
Heart throb actor John (don't call me Cal) Lynch was there, as were actors Gerard McSorley, John Kavanagh, Brenda Fricker and our answer to Macauley Culkin, the astonishingly cute Ciaran Fitzgerald. Several of the usual band of Irish first nighters arrived, including Gay Byrne and Kathleen Watkins, Robert Ballagh, Deirdre Purcell, Bill Hughes and Eithne Healy.
