'Four goals and a barmitzvah'

Why, you ask, am I hanging around the streets at night, in -10 degrees, I might add, with a woman in a 60's time warp and a kid in his dressing gown?
It's because I'm on the set of 66, a movie about a kid whose barmitzvah falls on the same day as the world cup soccer match in 1966 between England and West Germany (which England won 4:2). It's being made by the company that produced Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones and Billy Elliot and stars Helena Bonham Carter (who I saw tonight and who puffed a big cloud of cigarette smoke into my face). The entire British Jewish community seems to be involved in the shooting, with scenes filmed in various synagogues and 'Jewish' locations around town. A bunch of my friends are going to be participating in a wedding scene next week, and this scene -- which involves the boy's house going up in smoke, hence the fire engine -- was shot just around the corner from my house. About 3/4 of the extras, including the mother and son in the picture, were people from shul. So there you have it. It was all good fun, but I can't vouch for the script -- let's hope, for G-d's sake, that it's better than Anglo-Jewry's last effort, Suzie Gold!

[More about the movie, and more pictures, here]