POPEYE MONDAY

I’ve got a mate—not a close mate, but a mate—who’s been through some tough times over the past few years, so I was really cheered to receive a video message in our WhatsApp chat of him having a great time in Popeye Village, otherwise known as Sweethaven Village, in Malta, where he and a bunch of other tourists were re-creating some madcap scenes from Robert Altman’s 1980 movie Popeye, starring Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall. Considering the cold weather we’ve had here in the UK over the past few days, I appreciated the blast of sunshine and laughter that radiated and bellowed through my phone, as I’d almost forgotten the sound of people having fun—so miserable do so many people seem lately.

My mate had been pretty miserable too. One afternoon earlier in the year, I’d seen him in a funk of depression, sitting on a park bench in front of a lake, held hostage by anxiety, and things seemed pretty bleak with various issues going on in his life. The contrast between the man I saw that day and the one now laughing and having pretend bar fights with a Robin Williams lookalike Popeye figure felt like a welcome improvement for him. Perhaps they should offer this sort of thing as a form of therapy for all of us shivering Brits when we need to top up our vitamin D and sense of humour.

The purpose-built film-set village, originally constructed in 1979 with a considerable amount of effort and money, was later converted into a fun park, which seems a great way of adapting its use for the benefit of the local area. Considering Popeye wasn’t regarded as a box-office success at the time of its release, it’s heartening that one of America’s great auteur directors has a part of his legacy immortalised as a tourist attraction. Personally, I would love an equivalent tour package for some of Altman’s other films—McCabe and Mrs. Miller, The Long Goodbye, California Split, Thieves Like Us, and Nashville. I’d happily spend an afternoon drinking with a Sterling Hayden lookalike in front of the Malibu oceanfront, or playing a round or two of poker with John McCabe in a snow-covered, remote mining town in the Pacific Northwest.

But I guess, for now, I’ll be enjoying by osmosis the fun my mate’s been having on his Popeye Monday.