Four Weddings and a Reminder.

I should like to announce that tonight I did my duty to the British cinema by undertaking to watch the remainder of the film Four Weddings and a Funeral. And having made such an undertaking, I felt further duty-bound to find something funny (because you’re supposed to find something funny in a comedy, be it romantic or any other sort.) And I did find something funny. In fact, I found two things funny.

The first was when the dippy girl – whose connection to the MC I never managed to work out – walked into church as a bridesmaid without having fastened her dress at the back, so her blue knickers were showing. I found that moderately funny because my sense of humour can be nothing if not childlike at times.

What I found funnier, however, was the scene in which the MC goes into a posh shop to buy a wedding present and asks the starchy assistant for suggestions at around £50. The assistant replies: ‘Our plastic carrier bags are £1.50 each. Maybe you could get thirty three of those.’ I found it so funny in fact that I made the effort work out that he would have had 50p change. The scriptwriter missed it.

All in all I’m ashamed to say that I quite enjoyed it.

During the credits at the end I even sang the harmony to accompany the play-out song: Love is All Around. Do you realise it’s twenty seven years since I sang that to somebody? And I still remember the lyrics. And it occurred to me that the greatest legacy my high school bestowed on me was the ability to harmonise tunes. I played the trombone in the school orchestra, you see, and a natural sense of harmony came with the job. I have to say that it’s rarely proved useful, but a gift is a gift when all’s said and done.

On a more serious note, the film did reflect back to me some of my own history, and reminded me – if I needed any reminding – how short of the mark I always was in the matter of romantic relationships.