PSYCHO LIVE

We had a spontaneous night out last Friday...

I know! Who'd a-thunk it...?

This all happened because, during my late afternoon coffee break I happened to spot a Tweet from the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester in which they were demonstrating the size of their screen for “Tonight’s performance of Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’ with a the British Sinfonietta playing the musical score live…”

“That” I thought “Sounds right up our street! How on earth did I miss that this was on?” thought I, before emailing the Beloved with the annoying news that we’d probably missed out on something that we might have quite enjoyed.

However, I began to think. I had assumed that so late in the day there would be no tickets left but another quick visit to the website did seem to imply that there were, in fact, tickets still available and, after a little telephonic jiggery-pokery which included the word “Bonk?” replacing the word “Book?” in a one-word text message improved by predictive correction software (and which suddenly implied I’d achieved a completely different result that the one I’d actually planned for), tickets were booked and an impromptu and spontaneous night out was on the cards.

Ah, the sweet liberty of a commitment-free lifestyle.

Within an hour I was parked in the centre of Manchester, meeting the Beloved, doing a little “spontaneous night-out happy dance” in front of one of her colleagues and strolling down Oxford Road deciding upon where to eat. The decision was “Kitchenette”, part of the “Mud Crab” group, which provided me with an excellent chilli and cornbread which really just hit the spot.

By seven we were inside the Bridgewater and sipping on pre-show drinks of a Diet Coke-type nature and booking similar intermission drinks and generally feeling quite astonished that our evening had taken such a pleasantly unexpected turn.

Anyway, Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 thriller (or, if you prefer "black comedy…") unfolded much as we remembered with a string orchestra performing right beneath the screen in such an impressive way that, on occasions, you began to forget that they were actually doing so.

The screeching violins that accompany “that” scene were suitably disturbing and, as Norman cleaned up after his mother, and a car sank slowly into the swamp, the intermission arrived with a sense of warm satisfaction at an evening which was unfolding well, and several people being heard to exclaim that they had been genuinely surprised at what was happening in this fifty-four year old film that they’d somehow managed to avoid ever seeing or hearing anything about.

(…)

(That's my non-universal symbol for "speechless, by the way...)

Fairly soon we were watching part two and there were genuine gasps at the fate of Detective Arbogast, surprising giggles at the exposition after a discovery in a toilet bowl, disappointing laughter at the revelation in the fruit cellar, and more guffaws at the analysis of the psychiatrist as he tried to explain the plot to a less-savvy 1960s audience.

Oh well, even Hitchcock’s greatest admirers struggle to appreciate the inclusion of that scene.

Overall, though, “Psycho” remains a great movie and, if it can still fill a hall with an estimated two thousand or so people, means that perhaps not all film fans now believe that cinema started in 1977 with “Star Wars” after all.

It also intrigues me that, in an era when great scripts have to be “remade” over and over again because “people” allegedly won’t go and see “old” movies, and that’s the only way to get anyone to see these stories, or the general consensus is that “people” believe that anything more than a year old is not any good, some of these old classics show up for the great films they actually are, even if, occasionally, they have to include a scene of something being put into a toilet for it to be picked up on later and therefore doesn’t just assume that the viewing audience have the attention spans of mayflies like modern screenwriters, presumably brought up on the “plot structure” of all of those “shoot-em-ups” they played, seem to think they do.

“Psycho Live” was a great evening’s entertainment and I’m so glad that we bit the bullet and tried to get hold of those last-minute tickets. They were well-worth having and I’m looking forward to them having a crack at “Vertigo” or “North By Northwest” sometime, or maybe even some of the silent classics.

Heck, this bunch were so talented, I imagine that they could attempt a live performance of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy if they put their minds to it, although that might prove to be a very long night indeed…