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| Welcome to the Pleasure Dome |
Whitley Bay Film Festival
The Whitley Bay Film Festival is now in its fourth year and continues to go from strength to strength. On its website, the festival claims it celebrates ‘great films in great locations, in a town without a cinema.’
I have lived close to the North Tyneside seaside town for over twenty years and it’s my ‘go to’ place for fish and chips. Pantrinis of course together with bracing beach walks and a stunning sea view. Funny, I never really noticed it didn’t have a cinema until now.
Classic films are being screened in unusual venues across the town – St Mary’s Lighthouse was host to ‘The Fog’ last year and the Rendezvous cafe screened ‘The Piano’ followed by a floodlit piano performance at night right beside the sea.
The Patron of the Whitley Bay Film Festival since the very beginning in 2010 is Ian La Frenais. He is a famous son of Whitley Bay. He is probably best known for writing some of our most seminal British comedy including The Likely Lads, Porridge and Auf Weidersehen Pet.
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| Ticket to the fun fair |
That’ll Be the Day
I went to a screening of the 40th anniversary of ‘ That’ll Be the Day’ followed by it’s 1970’s sequel ‘Stardust.’ It was held in the Spanish City Dome. The dome was the the former Starlight Ballroom and makes for a very cool space indeed. It was a great experience. As far away from the soulless multiplex as you could wish to get. We sat inside the iconic concrete Dome with stars projected onto the ceiling and watched the big screen from rows of deckchairs. Still in keeping with our coastal venue. We had to sit on cushions for extra comfort and it did get rather chilly – but that’s the English seaside for you!
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| Super Starlight screen |
The foyer had other film related paraphernalia to peruse and purchase. Art house films from students were running on small screens and fresh popcorn is available for just one English pound.
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| Hello handsome! |
English culture and the Whitley Bay Film Festival
The David Essex films have a documentary quality to them and are a slice of social commentary on English culture at the time. ‘ That’ll Be the Day’ is a real coming of age film set at the time just before the birth of rock and roll. Stardust shows Essex after he becomes a star as the lead singer of the Stray Cats. It is a dark moral tale about the dangers of fame and drug abuse. Both films really stand the test of time. Of course David Essex is just pretty to look at anyway.
Ray Conolly tells his story
The writer of both films, Ray Connolly, was a special live guest at the festival. His tales of how the film was made were absolutely fascinating. Ray hadn’t seen his films on the big screen for many years. He explained that looking back it was easy to see his mistakes but also to see what he had got dead right as well.
It was Ray’s first ever screen play. He had previously been a reporter on £45 per week at the Evening Standard when the producer David Puttnam asked him if he wanted to have a go at writing a film. In fact, Connolly had written obituaries for Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. This was one of the reasons he was so keen to dispel the myths of the glamorous drug taking lifestyle in Stardust. It portrays the road to fame as really quite a dark journey with relationships and lives damaged by money and success.
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| Writer Ray – a cool dude |
The casting of Essex, he explained, was crucial to the success of the film. The character of Jim Maclaine has few redeeming features. He is pretty much totally amoral, so in order to pull it off he needed to be really good looking! Puttnam had seen David Essex on stage in Godspell, and the rest is history.
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| Dishy Dave |
Making the film
The film’s budget was £10,000 and everyone involved with the film got £5,000 plus a percentage. Not a lot by today’s standards. The first film was partly financed by Ronco records. Their criteria was that they featured every track on a double album in the film. They squeezed all the tracks into the fun fair scenes. Ringo Starr was asked to take part as he was the only person they knew who’d been to Butlins!
The band in the film also featured Keith Moon. Apparently he used to land in a helicopter, walk around the hotel naked and get on everybody’s nerves. Asked if he was friends with any of the stars he knew from that era Connolly replied ‘You’re never really friends with stars. They’re different to the rest of us.’
The Whitley Bay Film Festival is definitely a little bit of North East Stardust itself in my opinion.
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| Stop me and buy one |