Andrew Kay: The great beauty

Gourmet or gourmand, it’s an exciting cinematic experience …

A few years ago I organised an exhibition of photographs here in Brighton in the much missed Gardner Arts Centre. They were portraits of Brightonians from all walks of life, by artist Grant Vincent. They went on to repeat the project in Dieppe, and to great acclaim; so much so that a large reception was staged, with speeches. God how the French love speeches.

It was in one speech that I was declared to be a ‘gourmet’ and a ‘gourmand’, which I later discovered meant a lover of great food and a lover of life. I could not disagree.

I think that I have embraced life full on. I’m not one to sit back, and, despite having an aversion to the silliness of drug taking, I have pretty much been there and done everything else. I regret some things – but not much. I’ve made mistakes, I’ve even learned lessons from those mistakes; not always, but that’s life is it not?

You can sit on the fence or you can live – and by living I have experienced great things, great food, great art, great entertainment, great love and great beauty.

The Great Beauty is a film that explores one man’s life, a life in which he strives to experience as much as is possible; the high life, the night clubs, parties and bars of Rome and all of their excesses. Then he reaches 65 and decides to look beyond all that to find a far greater beauty.

When I was approached to see if I would like to see The Great Beauty in a new and totally immersive way, I was intrigued. Edible Cinema, the first of its kind, is a collaboration between Soho House chef Jake Rigby Wilson, events manager Zoe Paterson, renowned experience organiser Polly Betton and Bombay Sapphire mixologist Sean Ware.

A lover of great food and a lover of life

The concept promises to enhance the film using taste, aroma and texture to heighten the viewers’ sensory experience of the film’s most famous scenes, which will be accompanied by a series of bespoke, imaginatively created Bombay Sapphire cocktails. Each guest will receive a selection of numbered boxes at the start of the film, which they will be instructed to open and enjoy at certain points throughout. The contents of the boxes, and the carefully matched Bombay Sapphire cocktails that accompany them, will correspond to the action on screen, offering a multi-sensory cinema experience like no other. Well, how could I refuse? It all sounds rather exciting, although I hope that the food is not as disturbing as the munching of popcorn or the cocktails so strong that I cannot focus on the subtitles.

I’m not Jep Gambardella, nor indeed Toni Servillo – the actor who plays him in this much acclaimed film – but I will give things a go, and I will certainly be giving this gourmet and gourmand’s cinematic experience a go.

Tickets for Edible Cinema, The Great Beauty, go on sale on Monday 3 November from Eventbrite. The event will be held on Saturday 22 November at Duke’s At Komedia cinema from 6pm.

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