Fantasy Island?

Well, I can tell you now that the island itself is no fantasy – it is bang slap in the middle of the Thames, just towards the end of Queens Promenade (from Kingston Bridge, you walk by the river in the direction of the Brighton Road turn off for Surbiton). Here it is below:

It is pretty hard to miss Ravens Ait – the river isle hosts a complex of buildings that are currently owned by Kingston Council, and up until recently I was under the impression it was just a conference and wedding centre.

It turns out that it also caters for another event, one that I only found out about through a friend who had obtained tickets, and I agreed to take one of those off her hands – we were going to see an outside film screening!

These have apparently been occurring on Ravens Ait for quite some time. They are usually held during the summer months, and as far as I know you can either pick up the tickets at the venue, or get them on the web as my friend did.

A giant screen is set up on the isle just in front of the conference hall, and they provide bean bags for seating, which are set up in rows in front of it.

As aficionados of British Summertime weather will know, the heavens have been known to open from time to time. When the rains pour down the event organisers have a Plan B – the screening is switched to inside the conference hall, and there is usually a bit of a mad scramble to get the beanbags from the green into the shelter of the hall.

There was no sign of any rainfall on that Friday evening. I met my friend on the Queens Promenade river bank, at around 7.30 pm as arranged. The night was clear and bright, if not a little on the chilly side.

We took the local ferry. These were small, flat vessels that had a canvas roof to protect against the elements. A few of the event staff had been tasked with the role of operating these craft as they made the very short journey to and from the banks of Ravens Ait.

Once on the island, some ornate steps took us up to the kiosk within the sites entrance, and once our tickets had been confirmed, we made our way along the gravel path where we joined the other film goers on the main green that formed the centre of Ravens Ait.

They were randomly spread over the large, well maintained lawn, seated around tables, or dotted along the surrounding wooden fencing at the edges, where river boats could be seen passing by.

There was a large congregation of punters around the humongous screen set up in the corner of the green – we staked a claim to a couple of bean bags in the middle of the second row early – it looked as if there was going to be competition for seats!

Once base camp was established, the important business needed to be sorted out – in the conference hall bar I bought a pint of beer and a cider for my friend. She went for a veggie burger kind of thing in respect of food – despite being very tempted by a hotdog, I ended up paying about eight pounds for a burger and chips meal.

The time for the screening was at around 8:30 pm. An announcement was made on the tannoy, and after getting some more drinks in we joined the rest crowd who were settling into their beanbags for the movie.

My friend had been a bit cagey about the film we were going to see – she said if I knew what it was she didn’t think I would come along! It had to be said, ‘Bridesmaids’ would not have been my first choice of film.

On the plus side, it starred the lovely Kristen Wiig, and the legendary puking scene was actually quite funny. Also, the option of being able to get more beer from the bar certainly made sitting through the film a lot more bearable.

The bean bags proved to be very comfy, and were a good buffer against the evening chill that was developing. After it was all over, we made our way back to the riverside dock to get the ferry back to mainland Kingston.

I would certainly go to the cinema thing at Ravens Ait again – I would definitely recommend researching the choice of film though!