Very Annie Mary over Greenland
On the 9th July 2001 I had to make a flight to Washington DC to attend a conference. It was all the usual last minute panic pressures of a modern business. “This is very important, we really want you to go because you’re our key man, but you get a cheap ticket because the trip won’t earn revenue, blah, blah….” So the best I could get was economy on Virgin Atlantic. I get to Heathrow at the appointed time to find a queue doubled back on it’s self six times over and about 1,000 people ahead of me. So everything’s normal in Branson’s empire! I eventually check in an hour late and have to put all my spare clothes in my main suitcase ‘cos you can only take on 6 kilos and my laptop and it’s case weighs in at seven. “Oh yeah, so why do you let the guy in front on with a 30 kilo backpack and a howitzer?” “Well he paid the full price and you’re on an crummy APEX, you’ve got five minutes before boarding.”
So now I have to run to the other end of the airport and climb into the back seat next to the guy with the swastika tattoos, who talks to God and says he has an H Bomb in his luggage (I always get the nutters). Oh the joys of international travel! I grab a Gin & Tonic, two bottles of wine and a beer, pop half-a-bottle of Aspirins and settle down for seven hours of oblivion, while I listen to “Swastikas” ramble on about how he’s going to be President of the USA in 2012, once he’s changed three laws when he’s been elected to Congress, including the one about non-US born citizens not being able to be President.
But wait, what’s the in flight movie? For once it’s not “Lethal Weapon IV” or “Toy Story IX.” It’s not even a disaster movie about airplanes. It’s “Very Annie Mary!” I hug “Swastikas” and tell him this is probably the greatest movie of all time and I’ve waited over a month to see it and he’d never guess who is in it. He mutters something about always getting the nutters, pulls his hat over his eyes and pretends to be dead.
For the next hour and forty-five minutes I am glued to the six inch TV in the seatback in front, drinking in every word with the “Do not disturb” sticker on my forehead. Sometimes, I wipe my eyes, sometimes I touch the screen gently, and sometimes I laugh out loud (quite a lot actually). The Stewardesses keep their distance and “Swastikas” whimpers occasionally from under his hat.
This is a really funny, emotional, roller coaster of a movie. It makes you laugh and cry and laugh and cry all over again. It is Welsh with a capital CYMRU. Sara Sugarman has directed a masterpiece with a star cast including Rachel Griffiths, Jonathan Pryce, Ruth Madoc, Ioan Gruffudd and Matthew Rhys and of course our very own Mary Hopkin who plays one of the Chapel Ladies and has the funniest line in the whole film. Mary appears only three times in the film but is instantly recognisable and as beautiful as we all remember her. She really shines and lights up the whole screen.
At one point in the film you can hear the lovely Welsh Song "Bugeilio R Gwenith Gwyn" that Mary sang at the "Benny Gallagher and Friends" concert, in Largs, Scotland on the 30th August 1999. A date engraved in my memory. Unfortunately Mary does not personally sing this song in the film, which is a bit of a loss. I understand the sound track has been released from the film and no surprise that Mary was not on it, but I think its a shame Sara Sugarman did not use Mary's voice at some point during the film.
Below us, another blessing, for the first time on my flights across the Atlantic the skies are clear over Greenland and all the mountains and the icecap are visible for as far as the eye can see which is some considerable distance at 35,000 feet as we pass over Cape Farewell, Quqortoq and look up the Davis Straight to the Gela Alta Glacier, an unforgettable sight.
Yet another blessing occurs, in economy they don’t change the movies so it is run a second time. Even “Swastikas” has tuned in this time to see what is going on and has forgotten his plan to be President. So wishing I had not had the second bottle of wine and the beer I can enjoy it again, anticipating Mary’s lines, bouncing up and down in my seat, “Look there’s Mary Hopkin….”, “There she is again…”, “Listen for her lines….”, “She is so funny…”, “Look there’s her name in the credits….”. For the first time ever I steal the in-flight entertainment book because tucked in the corner of page 27 buried almost in the spine of the book is a little picture of Mary from the film. I think I must be the only person in the world who knows she’s there.
So if you are planning to cross the Atlantic this July there is a great reason to fly Virgin Atlantic. If you are not flying do watch out for this film, it is a must to see. Mary’s lines refer to the funniest concepts of all time and her voice is so clear. Like they say in the film, “A voice never goes away.” For all you Americans, I think Sara Sugarman and Mary Hopkin have saved you from a big problem in 2012!
Alan Binks,
21st July 2001.
not to be reproduced without permission of Mrs Pat Richmond.