Postman Pat The Movie - Kendal Premiere

My children's school was invited to take members of their film club along to the Kendal Premiere of Postman Pat: The Movie today. The author of the stories wrote them whilst living in Kendal and based them on the surrounding area so Kendal was chosen as the second place in the world to have the movie on screen after London! We donned our glad rags and headed on down to the Brewery Arts Centre to soak up the sun and the gala atmosphere.

One of the most fun bits was a chance for people to pose with Postman Pat himself (I wasn't the only adult!):

There were TV crews, photographers and journalists there to capture the event and to take opinions from the crowd. My daughter ratched up several interviews. First of all from BBC North West (we saw this one tonight!):

Then ITV Borders/Granada:

She was also spoken to by the Westmorland Gazette! Then Pat did a walkabout whilst we waited for the only star of the film who had come to the showing (Stephen Mangan) to arrive:

There was a lovely moment when the author of the stories John Cunningham met up with the voice of Pat (Stephen) and the walkabout Pat:

Then Stephen worked the crowd, signing autographs and posing for photos:

Finally we went inside the cinema and found a goodie bag on each seat with popcorn, water and an activity sheet. There was such a delay on the film starting that most of the popcorn was munched before the film started!

Finally we had some speeches before the main event:

The movie itself had all the well loved characters from the TV series. In the story Pat enters a talent competition and whilst he is taking part an evil character attempts to take over the Special Delivery Service using robot versions of Pat! All of this turns Pat's family and friends against Pat as he has to decide in the end what is more important to him.

The animation in the film is pretty spectacular and the character I love the most is Jess the cat. He may only ever say Miaow but he gets his message across through facial expressions and body language. My son thought the robots could have scared littler kids (he is 7) and thought the film should have had a PG certificate! However I didn't hear any kids sounding petrified during the film. 

Most of us really enjoyed the film and I only had one adult male friend you said that it was 2 hours of his life he would never get back! If you have younger children who are fans of Postman Pat then go along and see what it is all about.

When we came out my daughter was interviewed a few more times. First up by BBC Radio Cumbria (listen on Monday from 2PM):

 Then the ITV man wanted a post film interview:

He also asked me questions think as a revenge for me taking his photo so many times! All in all an incredible experience and one that we may never have again.