Scenes from the line

Yesterday, I saw "The Death of Stalin" at the Winter Garden theatre (I'll put some thoughts down about the film later).

The entrance to the Winter Garden and Elgin is through the main entrance, although part of the entryway is roped off for red carpet-type arrivals. It can make for a very congested passageway, esp if it's a popular film with stars in attendance.

That happened with Stalin. As I turned the corner and headed for the ticket-taker, I found myself less than a metre behind the female star of the film. Her very slim back was towards me and a bank of three or four squares of high-intensity LEDs shone in my face, putting her in silhouette. In the glare, I could see that she wore a black mini-dress, encrusted with sequins (more glare) and her short blonde hair was pulled back into a small bun. There was an over-riding impression of an almost lethal amount of polish.

At the same time, her face was obscured by the lights. To make matters worse, I couldn't remember who the female star was for the film (if you've seen the trailer, the film is about the machinations of the Politburo following the death of Stalin and the cast is, as a result, mostly male). She [I later learned that she was Andrea Risebrough] was a dark star, evidence of her presence mostly defined by the lights around her.