LFF: The Imitation Game

Wednesday 8th October 2014

Ah, London Film Festival, how time has flown by since you were last here. In 2013 I met Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, Joe Gordon Levitt, Ralph Fiennes, Daniel Radcliffe, Carey Mulligan, Rowan Atkinson and of course Anna Kendrick thanks to you. This year will need to do an awful lot to top that. However, if the Opening Night gala was anything to go by, this year is going to give it a good go.

Wednesday saw the Opening Night Gala of LFF, the premiere of The Imitation Game, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley. Both were due to attend alongside co-stars Allen Leech, Mark Strong, Charles Dance, Matthew Beard and Alex Lawther. It all sounded pretty promising. Until I remembered. This is London Film Festival – there’s one addition that was guaranteed. Rain.

Boy did it rain. I don’t think I’ve been in worse weather at a red carpet before. So much so, for the first half of this write up, there’s not actually any pictures. It was simply too wet to get the camera out. So, I’ll run pretty quickly through to start with. First to arrive was composer Alexandre Desplat. I’d love to meet Alexandre, but at the precise point he was going past it was pointless calling him, there was no way he was going to stop.

Matthew Beard came past next, and ran over to quickly sign a couple of autographs, including an index card for me.

Alex Lawther, who plays a young Alan Turing in the film came over next, and signed an index card for me as well.

Downton Abbey star Allen Leech followed, and was as lovely as ever. He signed an index card for me too, and posed for a quick photo despite the weather. Super guy!

John Hurt was a random arrival, but he didn’t come over in the rain. I don’t blame him! After an hour or so of continuous rain, it started to ease, just in time for Keira Knightley to come over and sign a few! She didn’t hang about for long, and refused to pose for photos with fans, but she did sign a fair few to her credit. I got an index card signed.

Charles Dance and Mark Strong both went past without signing, which was a shame, but I’ve met them both before so I’m not hugely concerned. That only left one person to come over, Sherlock himself Benedict Cumberbatch! Despite the weather, he’d made a really big effort to sign and pose for photos as much as he could. He even did an interview for the big screen and made a really heartfelt apology to the people that he acknowledged would miss out due to time – he apologised for “the rain ruining all the sharpies meaning my autograph’s not working” and for “it being so cold that our hands are all shaking so much the selfies aren’t coming out well”. He was genuinely being apologetic, which was awesome. But still he went along, trying to get to as many people as he could. I got an index card signed (which came out very well considering the weather), and got an awesome photo with him too. Super chuffed!!

I’ve met Benedict before, but this was the first time I’ve met him since I’ve watched Sherlock, which is pretty awesome. It was brilliant to see he’d not changed too with his fame.

So, LFF was off to a good, albeit wet, start. How will the rest of the festival go? Smoothly I hope!