Photo taken by Mr O’Boyle’s phone. Time: 4.30am this morning. Place: a black cab, en route from the ‘Pirates Of the Caribbean 2’ premiere party, heading across town to the Boogaloo.
A sequel night. Mr MacGowan is back, so it’s Return Of The Odd Couple time. Within seconds of meeting him at the Dorchester’s bar, he suggests another trip to Tangier. It’s ridiculously hot in London at the moment, so North Africa is hardly going to be a cooling break. But he argues that Tangier is used to high temperatures, and is built for them, unlike London. Moreover, it’s on the coast, so you get the Mediterranean breeze. Well, we’ll see.
And tonight we’re off to the premiere of ‘Pirates Of The Caribbean 2’, at the Leicester Square Odeon. There’s five tickets for us, and we’re four: Mr O’Boyle, Ms Clarke, Mr MacGowan, and myself. So we give the spare ticket to our taxi driver, who parks the car and joins us inside. He is absolutely delighted.
I naturally enjoy walking the big red carpet at Leicester Square, and wonder what the autograph hunters and paparazzi think as they see me. I could have sworn I heard someone shouting out:
“Hey! Dickon From Orlando!”
But it’s now occurred to me that they may have really shouted:
“Hey Dickhead! We want Orlando!”
The sequel reunites Mr Depp, Mr Bloom and Ms Knightley from the first film, joined by Mr Nighy as a Lovecraftian villain whose face is a mass of writhing octopus-like tentacles. There’s one scene where he fiendishly plays a church organ in true Hammer Horror style. Except the organ is on a watery ghost ship, and he plays it with his facial appendages. Presumably it’s CGI, but even on a screen as big as the Odeon’s, it’s hard to tell which bits are make-up and prosthetics, and which are applied by someone clever on a computer. Even so, the creature’s eyes – which are all that’s left of the actor’s face – are unmistakably Mr Nighy’s.
Though I love a good children’s blockbuster (I went to see ‘Narnia’ twice), I wasn’t a big fan of ‘Pirates 1′. The funny bits didn’t really work, and although the special effects were impressive, I felt everything else seemed far from special. The fantasy swashbuckling sequences were oddly corporate and soulless, and smacked of going through the motions. I was all too aware that this was not much more than its nominal description: a Disney film adaptation of a Disneyland funfair ride. Though Mr Rush was a fun villain, it was mostly Mr Depp’s otherworldy charisma that justified the movie’s existence. Now, one must never confuse an unremarkable film with a great Johnny Depp performance with an actually great film. But thousands disagreed with me, children, adults and Oscar judges alike, so here we are at the sequel.
While the producer Mr Bruckenheimer is hardly a flamboyant, artistic visionary along the lines of Mr Jackson, Mr Gilliam or Mr Burton, he knows what strangers all over the world will queue up to see. Or even, as in the case of this massive, traffic-halting premiere, what will make strangers queue up to see other strangers going into the cinema to see. He is a master of popcorn.
So I’m happy to report the sequel is a great improvement on its predecessor. The funny bits are actually funny, the fantasy set-pieces are more original and inventive. Mr Nighy’s fishy crew are incredible to look at: mutant faces which draw on starfish and hammerhead sharks, even a crewman whose head disappears into a shell like a hermit crab. There’s also a terrific swordfight on the top of a giant wooden wheel rolling through a tropical forest, which I’m fairly sure hasn’t been done before. Jack Davenport’s character has actually become a character, as opposed to the cardboard cut-out he was in the first film. Mr Depp is as watchable as ever. Although the Bruckheimer sheen still prevents it from being in the same stylish postcode as those wonderful Gothic Rococo movies Mr Depp makes with Mr Burton, it is definitely a lot of fun. The certificate says: “12A – Moderate Horror.”
Speaking of which, Mr MacGowan was his usual self. On the verge of being Difficult (or even Trouble) one moment, a knowledgeable and funny storyteller – and at some gatherings the only person in the room who’ll talk to me – the next.
At the premiere, an actor from “Lost’ asks to be photographed next to him. Although I’ve never seen the series, I’m aware of this gentlemen, who is unusually large for a modern US TV star. Long haired and plump, he looks more like your average comic shop worker than a glossy actor – and thus rather stands out from the rest of the more blandly pretty cast.
Which is to his credit, because I’d never recognise any of the others if they were there at the premiere. They’re entirely ‘lost’ on me, ho ho. Beauty is as much about registering in the memory as it is about surface aesthetics. This is why the large chap has more in common with Mr Depp than his Lost colleagues. And it’s also why Johnny Vegas is more beautiful than Sienna Miller. She’s one of those pretty actresses that the popular press like to spy on. I must have seen umpteen photos of her, yet I still would never recognise her in person. I think she’s blonde. I think.
After a meal at the Dorchester, we repair to Old Billingsgate Market for the premiere party. Lots of piratey props, palm trees, muslin tablecloths, rum cocktails, waiters in pirate costume. We spot Mr Depp, but don’t get the chance to speak to him. We hear later that he was looking for us – well, looking for Mr MacGowan. They’ve been friends since the release of Edward Scissorhands. Mr Depp has played guitar on Mr MacGowan’s solo records, and Mr MacGowan has appeared with him in The Libertine (though cut out in the edit).
In the party’s VIP area, I spot Mr Nighy, and Mr Davenport with a full beard, and a woman from the TV series Green Wing. Not Tamsin Thing, one of the other ones. No, not her either. Or her. The other one. Otherwise, we’re surrounded by people who are either celebrities I’m not aware of, or more likely non-famous people who go to premieres. These sort of massive screenings are mostly attended by competition winners, corporate hospitality types, friends and family of the hundreds involved with the movie, and industry workers. I suppose I’m here as a friend of a friend of Johnny Depp.
I do spot Mr Philip Sallon, who is never knowingly underdressed. He’s in full Georgian frills and lace jacket, which he’d be wearing anyway, pirate theme or no pirate theme. Mr MacGowan chats to him about the Blitz Kids days. It’s fair to say the Pogues singer was never a New Romantic, but he was definitely a well-known face about town in the Punk and Post-Punk days, and claims to have at least dipped his toe in every defining London club and gig scene from those days, regardless of the music. Including the Steve Strange crowd. As he tells me tonight, he even attended some of the early Acid House rave parties. “I just like to go wherever people are enjoying themselves.”
After the premiere party dismantles around Mr MacGowan, who has typically refused to leave until his chair is literally packed away in front of him, he eschews his hotel room for the sofas at the Boogaloo. There, the two of us are left drinking and falling asleep, as Donovan plays on the jukebox and the sun comes up on another unnecessarily hot day.
After a short snooze, I wake up, remember my real bed is yards away and leave him sleeping there. I let myself out of the pub – a privilege I never take for granted – and stagger home.
