The World's End- the Ultimate HP Movie

 

The World's End is a science fiction comedy by Edgar Wright, starring Nick Frost and Simon Pegg, making it one of the informal series of films called "the Cornetto Trilogy". It is about a group of middle aged male friends who go on a reunion pub crawl together after not seeing each other since they were schoolboys. During the course of the evening they discover, to their obvious amazement, that their old hometown is being invaded by alien robots disguised as humans. See here for the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n__1Y-N5tQk. The film is not set in a hospital, none of the characters are hospital porters and therefore you are right to wonder why I consider it an archetypal hospital portering movie. One reason, I concede, is simply wishful thinking. Hospital portering films are generally very bad. There have only been a handful of them ever made and they only get just very slightly better from their absolute nadir in the form of Paper Mask, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2012/11/paper-mask-online.html. Inevitably when a film comes along that I like, I search desperately for HP themes. Rarely do I find them, but sometimes I do. The World's End embodies, probably unintentionally, a primal portrait of HP culture. The characters all remind me of men I knew in the Hospital Portering Service. You may say that's merely a coincidence and nothing to do with the HPS; but, you see, I knew several of each type. I knew maybe only one or two civilians like that, but many many porters. Gary is loud, over exuberant and alcoholic. Underneath his flamboyant bonhomie lies a self-centred and entitled exploiter. When alcoholics behave like that it is not through malice. It is simply the art of living with their addiction. I lost count of the number of alcoholic porters I knew. The malady was endemic. I could write an entire article on that subject and to go into detail, but to do so now would take me off topic. Gary-types sometimes conceal a golden heart beneath their facades that, as brother porters, we alone could see. Get them alone and win their trust, and they will confide in you. Pete is the staid, introverted and gentile kind of porter, usually short of physical stature and methodical in his movements. Steve is the mildly eccentric porter with unusual facial features, a bit like the Gary-type, but much calmer. The Steve-type knows everything. To Steves, hospital life is a real soap opera. No bit of gossip or hospital intrigue escapes his attention. In fact he almost loses his senses with discomfort if he feels something is going on behind his back that he doesn't know about, even if it is an aspect of another's private life. Oliver is similar to Steve except that he has pretensions of grandeur. Olivers are the ones most like to be "serial re-leavers", see here for a detailed explanation of that: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2019/06/st-theo-2019.html. Some Olivers, but not all, are an "up the ladder" porter too, one who has aspirations, whether serious or just frivolous, of "bettering themselves" by become a nurse, paramedic or ODP etc. However Garys are the most common personality with that attitude. Jack was a classic Gary, see here for details: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2007/12/dont-tell-em-were-porters.html. Andy is a middle class dropout. Hospital portering tends to attract those kinds of people. One in particular I remember was an old Harrovian who had studied at Oxford, but had a nervous breakdown halfway through his course. He never recovered and spent the rest of his life in HPing. He started off at the Radcliffe Infirmary before the JRH was ever built. Despite their privileged background, Andys never fall into "up the ladder" culture. They remain salt-of-the-earth porters, even if some of them retain their posh accents.
 
At the heart of the story of The World's End, and also hospital portering society, is alcoholic drink. Whether it's the pint after a two-to-ten, fighting a hangover on your first morning six-to-two, a wild bender at the Park End Club on your first night off or wondering if you can get away with a shot of vodka on a nightshift afternoon; your relationship to the demon drink is a part of your life in HPing. In fact the film's plot twist is so extreme that this viewer was left wondering if everything that happens afterwards is just some sort of intoxicated delirium that HP's sometimes experience in the same way sailors on a submarine suffer "coffin dreams". There are some interesting characters in the film that resemble civilians. Sam and the evil twins are rather like several nurses I knew. Rev. Green is an ex-HP turned administration officer. Most porters like him start off as shop stewards. Mr Shepherd is an old doctor, a consultant of the aloof and self-absorbed variety. The odd one out is "mad Basil" the conspiratorial preacher... and you can guess who he signifies. For people familiar with the HPANWO blogs, there are of course many other factors to The World's End that are of interest to their readers; but leaving that aside for this review, the film is a hymn to the hospital portering spirit. Really, only a true porter could stand tall in the situation the Gary King character was in and shout "Oh fuck off, you big lamp!"
See here for more information: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2016/12/hospital-porters-in-media.html.
And: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2013/07/disorderlies.html.
And: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2019/07/porters-series-2.html.