Rebecca gets down with the kids but doesn’t manage to grab herself a movie goodie bag

Some of us will never get to schmooze with the A-listers. Some of us will never get to walk the red carpet.

Some of us just have to resign ourselves to the inevitable truth: we will never attend a movie premiere at Leicester Square.

This obvious truth I had accepted in the same way one accepts cellulite.

At first, with distaste, disgust, outrage. Then slowly, over the years, one gets used to it.

Even – sometimes – managing to feel relatively safe in the knowledge that it’s rather normal after all.

Well, until I was invited by a good friend (and screenwriter of the film, Oxford’s Richard Smith) to attend a film premiere in London. The Unbeatables was to be the film. Leicester Square was to be the place. I was going.

My first – and immediate – thought was one of panic: what do I wear? This thought was further complicated by the fact that here was a daytime event – morning, in fact – and therefore a typical red carpet floor-length ensemble would have been inappropriate.

One must not look inappropriate at a red carpet event, darling. Unless you’re Helena Bonham Carter and have made wildly inappropriate into wonderfully eccentric. Or you’re Liz Hurley and safety pins suddenly seem like an appropriate side-stitch.

People are dressing down to premieres nowadays, I was helpfully told. They didn’t understand that I may never get to do this again. Dressing down was simply not an option.

Sunday morning and I arrived in the capital early. Hopelessly early. So early, in fact, that I had time to eat a blueberry muffin sitting astride the fountain on Trafalgar Square. I’m sure there are classier ways to prepare for a premiere but I’m yet to find them. So there I was: 9am on a Sunday morning, resplendent in cocktail dress and sunglasses, while munching a muffin. It was like a scene from a low-budget Audrey Hepburn movie.

The red carpet was less red than green – it’s a football themed movie so I suppose it was deemed more fitting. After a mini celeb-spotting bonanza in the large foyer which had been temporarily transformed into a kind of upscale indoor amusement arcade, we were ushered into the theatre, golden tickets in hand. Upon entering the theatre we were treated to popcorn and marshmallows. The children even managed to swindle free bags from the attendants. I was not so lucky mainly because I was ‘too old’. Another reason to hate growing up – kids get all the fun.

The film is brilliant. Although it is fundamentally a kid’s movie there are plenty of in-jokes that only adults will pick up, and a lovely moral story underpinning the whole thing.

It’s visually stunning – Juan Jose Campanella, its Oscar-winning director’s touch is everywhere – and it tells the story of young Amadeo (voiced by Rupert Grint) – a down on his luck foosball player, who tasks himself with the challenge of saving his village with some help from his miniature foosball players who break free from their foosball table.

After much credit rolling – they tend to watch them to the end in a premiere – we departed. Cue: more celeb-spotting and flashbulbs flashing. And then in true, movie business fashion we found ourselves at the after party, pre-lunchtime, drinking far too much wine and telling everyone how fabulous they were. Daarhling.

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