A certain sort of audience

Mrs Harris Goes to Paris is the sort of film that you watch with a smile on your face. A lovely person who wins nearly everyone over. A silly premise: a charlady who saves up until she has the money needed to buy a Dior dress, and who then sets off for Paris, in her sensible shoes and hat, to buy a frock. If Lesley Manville in the lead role is just a tad too youthful and attractive, the producer can be forgiven I think for the glamour to which we are treated.

Set in the late 50s it's wonderfully atmospheric and now I want to a) go to Paris, and b) buy a Dior dress. 

The film is based on the book by Paul Gallico and I've since checked and found there are three or maybe four in the series about the charlady. I had been wracking my brain to think of the author and other books he'd written. One memory flitting in and out of my brain was a novel about a boxing kangaroo called Matilda, and, what do you know? He did write a novel about a boxing kangaroo called Matilda - which I read in the dim and distant past.

The film was shown in the university theatre, a fairly small and intimate gathering. Even so I didn't expect to see five women I knew! The audience was, let's say mature, and largely female. And I hate to say it and stereotype but the car we tried to squeeze in next to - no, I won't say it. Let's just say it was really badly parked.