well, what can i say. every now and then the title for a post actually directly relates to the content. and this is such an incident of that. so i suppose that is what i can say, look you see. yes, i did indeed get to meet the celebrated actor Griffin Dunne.
this was, of course, all down in that there London (innit) place. somewhat spurred on by my (rather) unexpected chance to go and see the Fawlty Towers stage production (or play, if you will) i decided to look around for other forms of entertainment, especially as there's nothing decent on at the cinema momentarily. mostly, i guess, i was looking for another show or play to attend, when up flashed an event entitled A Conversation With Griffin Dunne. i went "no way", read on, saw it was actually very much a case of "yes way" and immediately signed up. no, i am not prepared to disclose the cost of doing so, but be assured it was worth it.
since it was a rather intimate event i opted for the approach of not taking pictures, or for that matter videos. as regular readers shall be aware, my current phone with a camera welded to it is particularly useless for video. so much for Samsung being quality. others in attendance were happily snapping away and making a video or two, but honestly i wished more to listen to him. the above image, as you can most likely work out from his "cheers" toast, was at the end of the session, when it felt more appropriate to take a picture.
i would presume (or suspect) the overwhelming majority of anyone on the internet reading this knows precisely who Griffin Dunne is. for those strange ones who read all of this for what i do rather than what the content is, well, thank you. he (Griffin Dunne) is an actor, most famous for two 80s films in the form of the superb An American Werewolf In London and the outstanding After Hours. actually his segment in Amazon Women On The Moon remains as funny now as it was then. sadly, just as his fame was catching up to his talent level, an horrific tragedy struck his family, soon followed by a miscarriage of justice, i think it best to describe it as. this understandably changed the course of his life and indeed that of his family, in particular his father.
he has recently published his memoir, or if you will autobiography, The Friday Afternoon Club, with the text being a link to a google search for it. the publication of this was, as you have probably concluded, the reason for this appearance being scheduled. next to my copy of this book in the above picture is yet another copy of An American Werewolf In London, which i bought on the way to the event on the off chance i could get it signed. it was indeed the case that i already had rather more copies of this film than i could possibly need. a temptation was to purchase After Hours, but Fopp wanted £22 for it. this isn't an entirely unreasonable price for it, yet i felt i would have felt foolish spending so much and not be sure of getting it signed. of course i regret not doing so now, but hey, i have an all time favourite film signed by one of the cast and it was signed in Soho, too. the significance of that will be pretty obvious if you have seen the film.
exactly how much value there is in me attempting to "review" this event, for surely it was a unique thing, is debatable. at the risk of going fawning it really was an incredible evening. Griffin Dunne is, as you may well expect on the basis of his acting, a truly gifted and compelling speaker. quite a few of the things he spoke of, in particular (of course) the murder of his sister and the subsequent events, saw him lose composure momentarily. i believe i and everyone else in the audience wished to go and give him a huge hug, but what he wished for, and why he was doing this, was for people to listen.
yes, i was able to get a picture with Griffin Dunne. and i can assure you my choice of t-shirt was indeed quite deliberate. there are a couple of other pictures, but this is the one in which i least look like a trembling starstruck fool. although i would suspect none of you are actually all that interested in looking at the aspect of the picture which features moi.
my feeling is that it is not my place to recite some of the things he told us, and nor is his story a story which is for me to tell. but what i can do is encourage you to get a copy of The Friday Afternoon Club, either as a proper book or one of them "audio book" things. the aspect which affected me most was his discussion of (for want of a better word) the journey, psychologically, he has been on as the relative of a victim of crime. it feels to me that this book, beyond catharsis for the writer, is going to be of tremendous empathic impact for anyone to be so unfortunate to have experienced similar tragedy. this has clearly taken Griffin Dunne some courage and inner resolve to speak and write about. i would really, truly hope that it brings a degree of comfort for those who can, sadly, relate to what happened to his family.
presumably now everyone knows which is my favourite video (disc) in the collection, for there it is, signed above. i was extremely nervous about the idea of asking him to do so, but then others had brought similar. not excessively. as point of fact one top bloke there had a copy of the video (disc) cover which had been signed by nearly everyone involved in the film, with Griffin being the only major absent signature. that has now been done. for good measure he was also kind enough to sign my copy of his memoir. those that know me know that i very rarely read non-fiction and generally avoid hardback editions. exceptions are there, and exist, to be made.
for those keen on provenance, or correct dates, the event with Griffin Dunne just happened to take place on the night of the (so far only) general election we had in 2024. which means a most peculiar pattern has developed of me meeting famous people in London (innit) when there is some form of election on the go. in the last instance of an election, being as it was of provincial style and also for the Mayor of London, i got to meet Piers Corbyn (that one). link is there for those interested in that sort of thing, but i think i can comfortably state that this was my favourite celebrity encounter of the year. so far.
right, thank you for indulging me showing off a (hopefully little) bit here. mostly, though, i would like to encourage you to go and pick up a copy of Griffin Dunne's book. should the means by which i got to see and hear him not be unique and you do get the chance to go and hear him in conversation, please go ahead and do it.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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