Gosford Park
Film Club

Riverbank Arts Centre Newbridge
Wednesday 7th May
8.00pm (€4 plus membership)
Booking 045 448333

boxoffice@riverbank.ie

It is November 1932. Gosford Park is the magnificent country estate to which Sir William McCordle and his wife, Lady Sylvia, gather relations and friends for a weekend shooting party. They have invited an eclectic group including a countess, a World War I hero, the British matinee idol Ivor Novello and an American film producer who makes Charlie Chan movies.

As the guests assemble in the gilded drawing rooms above, their personal maids and valets swell the ranks of the house servants in the teeming kitchens and corridors below-stairs. But all is not as it seems: neither amongst the bejeweled guests lunching and dining at their enormous leisure, nor in the attic bedrooms and stark work stations where the servants labour for the comfort of their employers.
Early in Gosford Park, we meet the haughty, unlikable Constance (Maggie Smith), who is the Countess of Trentham, and her inexperienced, likable maid Mary Maceachran (Kelly Macdonald). It is largely through these two characters that we come to understand much about the fascinating world inhabited by English aristocrats and their servants between the two world wars. As the servants work hard to pamper the McCordles and their guests, we get an insider's view of this peculiar social milieu.

In this luxurious setting, we're made witness to a series of events which bridge generations, class, sex, tragic personal history - and culminate in a murder... (or is it two murders?). .

“Overflows with terrific performances by a sensational ensemble cast.” (New York Post)

“It’s the party of the year…” (Rolling Stone Magazine)

For further information, please contact Catríona or Gráinne on (045) 448314/5 or by e-mail at artscentre@riverbank.ie