Outdoors cinemas - right here in Wokingham!

I walked back from the pub last Friday evening to discover that there was a massive screen on the grass outside the Lloyds bar in Wokingham, and it was showing a film. They were showing Grease, people were sitting around on camping chairs, teenagers were merrily drinking while parents pretended not to notice - this was Wokingham's outdoor film festival.

"What an exciting idea" said I. So on Sunday I went along myself armed with a few bottles of Franziskaner to watch Cool Runnings with a healthy cross-section of Wokingham's very middle class population. "Cool Runnings?" I hear you ask. Yes indeed; I can only assume that the festival organisers got swept up in the recent Olympics excitement and plumped for the cheapest, most family-friendly, feel-good Olympics film they could find. Plus of course John Candy - about whom I think one of my housemates might have an unhealthy obsession.

Last weekend was very very hot, which was fantastically jammy timing for Wokingham borough council. It was certainly a pleasure to sit out on the grass as the sun went down getting bitten by mossies while watching a classic 1990s feel-good movie. Plenty of people were chatting, eating and making all sorts of noises while the film was on. Didn't make any difference to the experience - in fact it probably enhanced it. The sound system was sufficiently booming that it was always possible to concentrate on the film over any chatter, but at the same time easily possible to have a conversation with people sitting next to you. There was even some audience participation as the film ended, with many clapping along in time as the Jamaican bobsleigh team carried their sleigh over the finish line.

There's no need for me to review Cool Runnings here. I'm sure everyone remembers its feel-good message about the purity of taking part in sport. I don't think I had seen it since I was a child and I had forgotten just how linear a story it is; there are no sub-plots or love interests and it has a very simple arc for each of its characters. It's not a great film by any measure, but you can't argue with its simple idealism. Or watching a film outdoors, you can't argue with that either.

Unless it rains of course.