Sample café society as the Cosmo is reincarnated online as part of Refugee Week
The Cosmo Café in ‘Finchleystrasse’ (as bus conductors jovially called out in Finchley Road) was a much-loved place of refuge and refreshment for its refugee denizens from wartime ‘Mittel Europa’. When theatremaker and artist Pamela Howard had the inspired idea of recreating the Cosmo in its post-war heyday she remembered as a young art student, she and the fellow ‘Cosmonauts’ she recruited to conjure the café on and off stage were overwhelmed by the demand for tickets for just four performances over one November weekend in 2019 (click here to read our review).
As director and scenographer, Howard’s vision of the delights of immersive theatre did not disappoint; the audience, seated at tables became part of the intellectual life of the Cosmo and its deliciously eccentric regulars as it erupted around them. Howard’s recruits were top-notch actors and singers; versatile tenor Santiago del Fosco – channelling real-life waiter and Spanish guitarist Paco Peña – adding flamenco to the bill of fare, and a trio of superb musicians led by MD Brian Hughes from the piano.
Now Howard and Producer Kyle Nudo are planning to find a more permanent home for the Cosmo, hopefully at the end of the year, whenever the current situation might allow. In these uncertain times though, when nobody can predict when that might be, it’s especially heartening for all those anxious to visit the Cosmo to discover that the pair had the foresight to commission Andrew Snell and Eileen Hughes to film the production during those November performances.
I was lucky enough to enjoy a preview and am delighted to report that the film wonderfully recaptures the atmosphere of the reborn Cosmo, the spirit and vitality created by performers relishing the chance to share ‘their’ stories and refugee experiences. The mouth-watering signature dishes and the realities of their cramped bedsits in the then rather mean streets, all with the misleading monikers of ‘Gardens’, are evoked by delicious lyrics to appropriate tunes, including 'The Blue Danube' and Russian folk song ‘Ochi Chyornye’ (‘Dark Eyes’), courtesy of the writing team Philip Glassborow, Harold Baum and Alon Nashman.
By stationing cameras at strategic spots throughout the café, the filmmakers succeed in giving viewers a unique look at the goings on in the café, as Cosmo newbie Pammy (Eleanor Crowe playing the young Howard herself) gets a guided 'insiders' tour courtesy of Frank Barrie’s helpful habitué, Polish artist Mariusz Lewandowski.
What is extraordinarily special about this film is that it offers a double helping of nostalgia. For as it brings to life the Cosmo of the 1950s right among the tables packed with its delighted new clientele, it also reminds us of what we are currently missing – the chance to be part of a live audience, to share the collective experience of live theatre.
Meanwhile this warm shared experience via Zoom will whet your appetite for that 'visit’ to the Cosmo. There’s the added value afterwards of a Q&A with Howard, Marion Manheimer, daughter of the Cosmo’s owners, Etan Smallman, whose grandfather was its manager, and actor Jack Klaff (a patron himself), who portrays the ghost of 1930s Cosmo regular Sigmund Freud.
By Judi Herman
Production photos by Kyle Nudo
The Ballad of the Cosmo Café will be screened Thursday 18 June. 3.30pm. Free, but booking essential. Register at Eventbrite and visit the Insiders/Outsiders website for further info.