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.
