Who's in charge here?

Deborah Moggach

Deborah Moggach's In Conversation with Telegraph film writer and critic, David Gritten, at St Peter's Centre on Friday, the May Festival opening night, was a knock-out. Funny, witty insights into writing for screen (by no means all about dialogue) with clips from Pride and Prejudice (the muddy hems and hens version), The Diary of Anne Frank and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel in a truly distinctive setting, St Peter's Church with its double chancel and no less than three Norman arches, inventively renovated to provide space for events like this, a cafe and a public library in the ringing room where the book signing took place.

David Gritten

Lighting for the event was subdued and low key. Halfway through the evening and right in the middle of one of David Gritten's questions there was the sound of the latch on the heavy outer door turning. A man put his head around the door. We all froze. "Who's in charge here?" he asked. God? BAFTA? Borderlines? were the answers that randomly rushed through my brain. A raid? It turned out to be a car parking issue involving the gentleman's lorry that Emma, the Centre's administrator, was able to resolve but not a bad illustration of dramatic incidence/comic timing.

A similar thought occurred when, after a quick drink at the Pandy Inn where we bumped into members of the audience from another opening night screening, Midnight in Paris at Dorstone Village Hall, I found myself around midnight uprooting a Borderlines road sign from a mound sited conveniently outside Peterchurch Police Station. I wasn't arrested and lived to deploy the sign elsewhere.

Clips from Pride and Prejudice

Set up for the book-signing courtesy of Waterstones, Hereford