AT the screening of Sense And Sensibility on Sunday night in the Savoy, the women outnumbered men by four to one. As RTE producer Carolyn Fisher merrily provided her female companions with Kleenex, she offered the opinion that "the invite list must have targeted well known soppy women" and the film duly delivered several opportunities for discreet eye wiping.
Earlier in the day Carolyn had brought her young son, Sam, to the first screening of Joe My Friend, the children's film that was shot in Ireland last summer which won a Crystal Bear award at last month's Berlin Film Festival. Its American stars, Joel Grey of Cabaret fame and Schuyler Fisk, daughter of Sissy Spacek, couldn't make the screening but many of the Irish cast did, including 13 year old John Cleere from Kilkenny.
His last screen venture was with Alan Parker's War of The Buttons and while he wants to be a director when he grows up, at the moment the very self assured young man is content to go back to auditioning.
"Being a kid actor is not like being Brando or somebody," he says in answer to that old what are you going to do next question, "you never know what your next project will be." Actress Pauline McLynn who plays Mrs Doyle in the film couldn't be there as she is in London playing another Mrs Doyle, this time the crazed, tea making priests' housekeeper in Channel 4's cult comedy series Fr Ted.