PicChat a great crowd pleaser

Joan and Mike Street

MIKE: It was the seventh such event staged by the Sarjeant and again the venue was packed.
PicChat is clearly a huge drawcard, providing both entertaining and interesting topics, as well as an insight into the speaker's personality.
Last Friday's session at the Musicians' Club (probably better known as the Savage Club) was no exception.

The evening began with Kathy Cunningham's dictum of 'do what scares you', when fear is overcome and adrenalin-fuelled euphoria results. The comic characters Coyote and Road Runner formed the basis of Mike Dickison's subject, their simplicity concealing a powerful message about the humiliating and undignified treatment doled out to the Navajo Indians in America.
There was so much dry and cynical humour in Mike's deceptively relaxed delivery. A trip to Antarctica 25 years ago had obviously made a deep impression on the young teacher that Pauline Donaldson was at that time. She told of being a vital video link between schools in Australasia, sharing the experience of life on the ice.

Both Joan and I were delighted when Josh Chandulal-Mackay was elected to the Council, having witnessed for ourselves his passion and concern for others.
This was again evident in his account of volunteering to assist in rest homes, firstly at the Home of Compassion, then, when that closed, at Nazareth and later finding a similar position in Palmerston North during his university years. There was pathos and humour in the scenes he described, along with a genuine empathy for the elderly citizens.
There was absolutely no hint of self-aggrandisement in his words, purely a caring statement of facts. The first half concluded with the talented and vivacious Lee Williams, a costumier who worked on River Queen, moved to Weta Workshops in Wellington, where she was involved with garments, animatronics and prosthetics, then switched her attention and skills to costumes for opera and ballet.

The interval was probably slightly too prolonged, judging by the nervous anticipation of some second half performers. However, it had the decided advantage of ensuring that the cash bar's liquid offerings could be enjoyed at a leisurely pace, along with a generous amount of tasty nibbles supplied by Annette Main.

First up after the break was Prabh Mokha, who turned a fairly mundane tale of moving house - literally! - into a quite hilarious story.
His timing was brilliant! Next came Nicola Patrick, who, true to her Greens' roots, gave us Ingredients for a Childhood in Nature, an opportunity, as she herself proclaimed, to display photographs of her children. Flies, I must confess, do not rank among the small creatures whose lives I routinely spare, such as spiders or slaters.
Flies are dirty and spread diseases. According to Rudi Schnitzler, however, only 5 per cent of all the fly varieties in the world fall into that unsavoury category. They have given the rest a bad name. I felt ashamed and fervently hoped that all my victims were members of that 5 per cent!
Along with the rest of the audience we were gobsmacked by his fly slides - try saying that after a couple of wines! - and we found ourselves laughing out loud at his witty delivery and wonderful groan-inducing puns. Planet Sapiens was Athol Steward's title for his wide-ranging discussion , touching, among others, on famines, the earth's over-population and the dangers inherent in sugar consumption. Some of his facts were staggering.
To be told that 56 million people die annually on our planet was almost beyond comprehension. Last, but by no means least, was Wayne Dellow, with a personal story, baring his soul as he described his struggle with depression, an issue which has been in the news a good deal recently. We certainly admired his courage.
My thanks to all 10 participants. I look forward eagerly to the Sarjeant's eighth offering.

JOAN: Dunkirk. The name brought back memories of my mother and my childhood. I remembered her telling me the amazing true story of an armada of small boats which left the shores of the south of England and travelled to the French coast.
Putting their own civilian lives at risk, they rescued the thousands of soldiers stranded there under enemy fire. My mother called this the turning point of World War II. It saved the free world from Hitler's grasp, she told me. I felt so proud to be British. I read up quite a lot of the facts of the battle and the event has remained with me as an example of courage and self-sacrifice.

The 'miracle of deliverance', as Churchill called it, took place over a week in the summer of 1940. The endangered troops were assembled on the beach and areas around the sea. The destroyers could not uplift these men from the blocked harbour and the sandy shore. In answer to a desperate call, 800 small English boats, including trawlers, fishing boats, lifeboats, all civilian-manned, made their way to the area. Without any thought for themselves, these brave people of all ages and skills rescued 338,226 men and delivered them home.

When the film came to Whanganui recently, I read, as I usually do, all the reviews of the film. I hadn't seen such praise for a film for a long while! Mike and I joined a large audience at the Embassy. I knew that the film had been made with the vast I-Max screens in mind. There was certainly plenty of skilled photography and sound was, as it should have been, invasive and threatening.

But I was deeply disappointed. At the start of the film, the director told us that this film would show us a week of experiences by characters chosen to portray the men on the beaches, a day from the experiences of the crew of one of the 8oo boats and an hour in the experience of a spitfire pilot fighting the German planes overhead. This was done remarkably well by the film. Yet, to my mind, it became just another 'war film' as the true story of the courage and success of the 800 was lost. The triumph of Dunkirk was the success of the evacuation by the small, oh so vulnerable boats.

This film simply reminded me of films made during and just after the war as a boost to British morale. It will be as exciting to young people watching it today as was the idea of war before Gallipoli and for us older people, in my opinion, it glorified war and forgot the horror. Did the gloom of Brexit bring forth this film? Did it fulfil a need to show that, at this moment in history, England can once again, survive alone? The film has troubled me deeply. The ending was nauseous to me as Kenneth Branagh, a fine actor, reduced the film even further by the kind of salute to all and sundry that would have made the young Richard Attenborough proud. I know it had its good parts but I would really value the opinion of anyone who saw and enjoyed it and the reasons why.

Suggestions and comments to mjstreet@xtra.co.nz