Don't roll out the red carpet please

I COULD DO THAT

The Edinburgh International Film Festival is now underway and I'm looking forward to spending much of the next week or so stuck inside a cinema. At time of writing I've only seen two so it's early days in the marathon, but it's already been enjoyable.

Watching movies as part of festival is a different experience to regular cinemagoing. You don't have to sit through endless ads and trailers, it's straight into the feature. The people who attend are generally a bit more passionate about their viewing, so you know you're going to be part of an attentive audience. And often there's the presence of directors and/or actors who've come along to see how audiences will react to their work.

Often there will be a Q&A session with some of those involved with the film directly after the screening. Sometimes best avoided if you have another film to see soon after. Sometimes best avoided because the speakers aren't always as riveting as they seem to think they are....

But by and large this is a plus. The greatest pleasure is watching the actors doing what they do best, what they are paid to do, and actually acting up there on the screen. Often it's interesting to hear what they have to say about the creation of their characters, the behind the scenes stories of what was involved in shooting some of the more difficult scenes, the development of the story. I saw Richard E Grant last night and he had a deep well of entertaining stories to tell. Later in the week I am genuinely looking forward to seeing and hearing Sheila Hancock.

But there's one aspect of this I just don't get at all. The red carpet. Fans, and photographers of course, stand for ages awaiting the arrival of a car. The actor gets out of the car, maybe waves a bit, and walks into the building.

I want to see them acting. I will often enjoy listening to them talking about acting. But do I really need to see how well they can walk from a car to a door? It's not like it's a special skill they have they can do better than anyone else. I could get to see that demonstrated at any office block of a morning. I mean, I could do that. Couldn't you?