Cultural Highlights of the Year

With Oscar Fever all over the place at the moment, here's a different kind of award that I'd like to share with you.

In the BBC's Late Review (aka. Newsnight Review) the regular reviewers at the end of each year would be asked for their cultural highlight of the year - their choices were often varied, eclectic and sometimes unusual: Tom Paulin in 1997 for example selected the speech given by Earl Spencer at the funeral for his sister Princess Diana.

The idea set me thinking of whichever cultural event or landmark was the one (or more) that made the most vivid impression on me each year - some are sport-related, others a little more obscure such as amateur plays I've been involved in, and in the case of the early 1990's working back, a certain amount of scratching my memory banks was required; dangerous, because nostalgia can give one a better impression of the year than the actual immediacy of the time does.

Here they are, roughly from remembered years:

1975: going to school at St. Joseph's RC, Aylesbury
1976: family holiday at Paignton
1976/77: The Nativity Play - I played my namesake patron saint
1978: Star Wars (surprise, surprise...)
1979: Superman The Movie
1980: The Empire Strikes Back
1981: Ipswich Town's UEFA Cup winning season
1982: holiday in Hastings
1983: Essex v. Middlesex: Benson and Hedges Cup Final at Lord's
1984: Tour of Wembley Stadium
1985: The death of Jason Ellis & Bradford City FC fire
1986: "Kids Aid" at St. Benedict's School
1987: The Mission & Return of the Jedi (video)
1988: Who Framed Roger Rabbit
1989: breaking of the Berlin Wall & Dead Poets Society
1990: England v. India - First Test at Lord's & resignation of Margaret Thatcher
1991: Return to Ypres & 75 Not Out
1992: JFK
1993: Jurassic Park
1994: Star Wars Trilogy Day (Elstree) & Cabaret (Harlequin Productions - Walton-on-Naze)
1995: Nasty Neighbours & Countdown (featuring Teresa Sales)
1996: Brighton Beach Memoirs
1997: Eating Avocado & Star Wars Trilogy Special Editions & Hobson's Choice & The Merchant of Venice
1998: John Williams in concert: Barbican Centre
1999: Teresa Sales in Talking Heads: Cream Cracker Under the Settee
2000: Napoleon
2001: The Herbal Bed
2002: Miss Julie
2003: Russian Ark
2004: The Passion of the Christ
2005: Revenge of the Sith & One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Making Waves)
2006: Journey's End & I Have Been Here Before
2007: Alone It Stands & King Lear (Headgate Theatre)

For cultural highlight(s) of 2008, see previous blog.