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Mamma Mia!

22nd July 2008 by Helena 5 Comments  

Stockholm seemed a fitting place to see the film version of Mamma Mia! Julia and I saw the musical a few years ago in London and loved it. As it was raining yesterday I took the four children off in search of a cinema. We eventually found one and settled down with our popcorn to a real treat. We were in the middle of the front row, my favourite place to sit.

""The film is brilliant; we all loved it. I particularly related to the plot because part of it hinges on who is going to give the girl away at her wedding. I had a similar conundrum at mine. By then my step-father and I had fallen out, so he was off the list. My real father seemed an obvious second choice (although he had practically nothing to do with bringing me up). So he was dragged along to Sweden, along with around 100 other guests.

The morning of the big day he left. He has still to fully explain himself but has said he finds weddings so “bourgeois”. So I was left with two major problems. One, who was going to do the Dante reading and two, who was going to walk me up the aisle. I asked my Italian aunt if she would do the reading.

“But I don’t know if my hat will go with Dante,” she said. Perfectly understandable. But she did it, and read beautifully. I asked my mother to walk me up the aisle and give me away. It was an emotional moment and fitting as my mother is the person who brought me up and the one closest to me by far.

I won’t tell you what happens in the film, but go and see it. I felt like clapping and singing, rather like we did in the musical, but being in Sweden I suppressed my desires for fear of arrest for unruly behaviour.

The kids loved it. “I sunged all the songs,” Leo told me. “Oh why is it finished?” wailed Olivia at the end. Meryl Streep was, as always, totally amazing. I read somewhere she wrote to the boys from ABBA and asked if she could be in any film version they made.

She was the perfect choice, rather like my mother was at my wedding.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008


Filed Under: Family, Sweden, blog --> Tagged With: mamma

5 thoughts on Mamma Mia!

  • Jonathan Miller says:
    24th July 2008 at 9:19 am

    Totally agree with you on Abba as you agree with me on Mika.

  • Irene says:
    30th July 2008 at 11:14 am

    Glad you liked it. My kids wake up to it, sing to it, look forward to seeing it again (yes, we eill buy it on DVD!).

  • Gee Hamilton says:
    15th August 2008 at 10:16 am

    Hi,

    Would it not be possible to do a book telling us all about cosmetics, for example:

    Clains Bust firming lotion. Well you can lather it on your bust, but if it firms the bust why not the wrinkles on your face.

    If a hand cream smooths your hands and get rid of age sports. why will it not do the same on the face?

    Why are cosmetis site specific?

    I know it would not be possible to do a in depth book on this as most of the Newspapers you write for depend on the advertising, but surely there must be a con somewhere.

    I remember when Estee Lauder died and some-one commented I would buy her products if she had not looked 94.

    Is it Make-up plus the expert way it is applied that really works in making us look good for our age.

    A few weeks ago I had my make-up done professionally what a world of difference.

    Come on enlighten us.

    Gee

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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