STOW FILM LOUNGE @ MIRTH, MARVEL & MAUD (SMALLER CINEMA ON THE LOWER LEVEL IN THE FORMER GRANADA), 186 HOE ST, WALTHAMSTOW 17 4QH. As part of the “Be Magnificent: Walthamstow School of Art 1957 – 1967″ exhibition at Waltham Forest’s William Morris Gallery and Vestry House Museum (in partnership with Create), Stow Film Lounge are presenting four film screenings relating to the creativity and influences generated from that time.

Our third event features the highly original and influential “The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover” directed by Peter Greenaway, who was himself a Walthamstow School of Art Alumni, having grown up in nearby Chingford.

Greenaway’s sixth feature is one of his best known most (in)famous films. Ian Dury, his contemporary at the Walthamstow School of Art, makes a rare acting appearance as Terry Fitch, a gangster. The film focuses on churlish mobster Albert Spica (Michael Gambon) who acquires an upscale French restaurant in London. He dines there nightly, effectively scaring off the clientele with his bad manners. His wife, Georgina (Helen Mirren), is especially disgusted by him, and soon begins an affair with another restaurant guest, Michael (Alan Howard). Despite their efforts to keep it a secret, however, Spica finds out about their trysts, and he plans to exact a terrible revenge.

The critic Roger Ebert reflected: “I think The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover is more of a meditation on modern times in general. It is about the greed of an entrepreneurial class that takes over perfectly efficient companies and steals their assets, that marches roughshod over timid laws in pursuit of its own aggrandisement, that rapes the environment, that enforces its tyranny on the timid majority – which distracts itself with romance and escapism to avoid facing up to the bully-boys.”

TIMINGS
Doors 19.45, Films 20.00, Close 23.00

TICKETS
£3 + 51p online booking fee and available online through SFL, at the Mirth bar or on the door.