Shall We Dance? UK Movie Premiere, Wednesday February 16th 2005, Leicester Square, London by Steve Rudd

The weather might have been bitterly cold, but still the most entertaining Square in all of London was relatively packed for the UK movie premiere of Shall We Dance?, which was in aid of charity - and the Asia Tsunami appeal in particular. Shall We Dance? is the latest movie from Richard Gere, who stars as a man in need of some dancing lessons to woo his wife, here played by Susan Sarandon. His dance teacher in the movie takes the shapely form - luckily for both him as an actor and the rest of the world as mere spectators - of none other than Jennifer Lopez.

Luckily for both Gere and J-Lo, neither of them were total strangers to putting themselves through dance-orientated paces when preparing for and shooting this movie, as Gere had to strut his stuff for his energetic role in the movie version of Chicago, while J-Lo has long been renowned for her dancing skills that form such an integral part of her other day job as pop star when she isn't acting.

Frustratingly for the legions of J-Lo fans who straddled both sides of the red carpet for the premiere, she cancelled her appearance at the event which further fired up press rumours that she might just be pregnant, but Richard Gere did show up with his wife.

He must have been feeling the chill of the night though, because he didn't loiter for too long on the red carpet and zig-zagged down its length in less than ten minutes, shaking hands with - and signing autographs for - only a select number of people along the way. Susan Sarandon also failed to show which was another major disappointment, especially because if she had have turned up it would most likely have been with her Hollywood husband Tim Robbins who is just as big a star as she is, due in no small part to his awe-inspiring performance in 1994's Shawshank Redemption.

So, apart from Gere, the rest of the so-called celebrities who sashayed down the red carpet were mainly British TV celebrities who wanted to gain a little more exposure for themselves. This resulted in the likes of TV presenter Paul Ross swanning into the cinema with his family in tow, along with Esther Ranzten, Rob Brydon (who isn't half as funny as he thinks he is), Vanessa Feltz and a couple of girls out of Eastenders.

Cat Deeley and Tess Daly were two of the presenters who were working in the midst of the Glam premiere, dashing in and out of the throng of movie-goers to try and nab exclusive interviews with the few stars who happened to be in attendance. Oh, and I'm sure I spotted 80's Electro-Popstar Gary Numan somewhere along the line (well, his slickly-styled hair and bulky sunglasses made whoever it was I thought was him look a dead ringer should I be wrong!).

Even despite the lack of major celebrities, the whole movie premiere experience was still thoroughly exciting, and a young troupe of dancers graced the red carpet a number of times to keep the crowd suitably entertained, showing off their own ballroom dancing moves with graceful flair.

Hmm, there wasn't even anybody from Come Dancing - such as Bruce Forsyth or Natasha Kaplinsky - at the premiere, but never mind... for Honor Blackman was there to add a distinctive dash of glamour to proceedings if nobody else was. Otherwise all the attention was showered upon Richard Gere, who is still looking fantastic and who has been long adored by the female contingent of the species on the back of his big screen performances in the hopelessly romantic Officer And A Gentleman, Pretty Woman, Sommersby and Runaway Bride movies.

Yep, you could say that he stepped up the night's excitement levels a Gere (or two) when he showed his handsome face... Shall We Dance? is on general release and is showing at all good cinemas now.

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