Tandoori anybody?

There is a restaurant in the Fulham Road (near Sydney Street) called Indigo. It was formerly known as the Chelsea Tandoori, or, right at the beginning, The Tandoori, since it was the first one ever in London that had a real Tandoor oven.

In 1969 my step uncle was busy shooting a movie in it, at three in the morning, called "All the Right Noises". It was handy for him, because at the time he lived in Britten Street, about five minutes walk away. It's just been re-released on Blu Ray, under the auspices of the British Film Institute.

I honestly don't remember much about it. What I remember, is being driven up to London, to Conduit Square, for a private screening of it. I remember that bit because I went up with Gerry's brother in an Lancia Fulvia sport which sabotaged the trip on the way back when the windscreen wipers seized in a downpour.

The movie had distribution problems and never really had a chance, but the BFI, in their wisdom, have re-released it, along with another of his films, That Kind of Girl .

One of my memories of the sixties is travelling to London with my step-uncle, with his dog, Fred. Fred caught three burglars in his short life and bit everybody but me. Fred and I understood each other. On these journeys, Gerry would tell me about his films and his adventures, often going through an entire full on movie pitch. I guess he was used to it. At the outset he told me about how he got into movies, how he worked with some of the great directors, such as David Lean and Otto Preminger and of course, Tony Richardson, with whom he jointly got a Director's Guild of America award - Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures - for his work on Tom Jones.


We once went to eat at San Frediano, his regular haunt in Chelsea, where he had a sort of standing appointment with his friend Nicholas Roeg, who I think he must have met via the David Lean connection. It never really occurred to me, then about 14 or 15 years old, that this was actually quite a special thing to do.  I never properly thanked him for being so generous and to be frank, indulgent towards somebody who was only interested in himself.

But I think it set the tone for the next few years!