Following some rather nasty weather which continued into the evening a number of guests preferred (understandably !) to stay at home, however, 36 (of 51) braved it through the cold and rain and the atmosphere inside the hall was buzzing.

We started the evening with two “Long Service” Volunteer presentations to Chris and Jo. Chris received his award of an engraved glass coaster for completing 50 Volunteering stints, whilst Jo had achieved the amazing total of 150 ! Thank you so much – and well done to you both.

I last watched “Robin and the 7 Hoods” many years ago;  I was 7 or 8 and at the time the BBC used to show films like this on a Sunday afternoon.  I can still vividly recall the scene where the gambling den cleverly morphs into a chapel leading into the “Mr Booze” segment –  and I was really looking forward to seeing it some 50 years (… or a bit more….) later.

Did I enjoy it ? Yes. Peter Falk really hams it as Guy Gisborne; the only difference between his acting here and in Columbo which was shot 7 years later was the addition of a mac ! I’d forgotten that Edward G. Robinson had an uncredited cameo part as gangland boss “Big Jim”. And I certainly still enjoyed Bing Crosby’s performance. Some of the songs (“Style”, “My Kind of Town”) were classics and I felt the Prohibition era spoof variation on the standard “Robin Hood” plot worked. But did I enjoy it as much… well, probably not.

Interestingly one of our Volunteers said after the show that it seemed as if the Rat Pack were “going through the motions” in the song/dance routines which I think I’d agree with – certainly I felt that Bing Crosby came across better in the joint songs (“Style”) than Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. Is it a great film / musical ? I’d have to say no.  With hindsight I suppose it’s got more of a cult following rather than being a quality film but I am glad to have seen it again.

Our audience seemed quite split on this one. About a quarter loved it, 6 of you didn’t rate it at all and the rest were on the fence in the middle ! You can see how the voting went below.

 

 

“Thank you all for turning out & praise for the Volunteers”