Behind The Scenes: The UK Gala Screening Of INTO THE WOODS, January 7 2015

When I was offered the opportunity to attend a gala screening of Into The Woods with the promise of Meryl Streep attending, naturally it didn't take me long to say yes. After all, I'd seen people arriving at galas on the telly, and this was finally my chance to be one of those people. Also: Meryl Streep! In person! Breathing the same air that I would be breathing!

What I didn't realise is that being a glamorous gala-goer isn't quite as easy as it looks. For starters, I rolled up straight from my nine-to-five wearing mud-splattered trainers and jeans that had seen better days, only to realise that everyone else was dressed in their very finest. As I watched them all glide past me - and believe me that people in eveningwear definitely glide, they do not walk - I began to feel just the teeniest bit underdressed. There was also the small hiccup that my ticket had got lost in the post, putting me in the embarrassing position of trying to find the person who had invited me and explain the situation - no mean feat when there are hundreds of people swarming a narrow central London street and you're desperately trying not to get trampled underfoot or to become a blockade for people who are just trying to get to the tube station.

Fortunately, every single person who was standing outside the venue dealing with tickets was spectacularly kind, friendly and helpful - so even though it took me a few attempts to find the right person, everyone I spoke to was very concerned about making sure I got in, which definitely made this a cut above my usual experience of going to the cinema before I'd even got to the door.

While we were waiting for our tickets, my partner and I hovered on the pavement with the rest of the fans and watched the A-listers walked in. Or rather: there were far too many people between us and the velvet ropes, so we didn't actually see any celebrities up close, but we did see Emily Blunt on the screen of someone's smartphone as they filmed her walking past. Still, that was still much closer to Emily Blunt than I had ever been before, so I counted it as a plus nonetheless.

Once the very kind representatives had made up for the failings of Royal Mail and sorted out the issue of our absent tickets, my partner and I walked down the red carpet. Yep, we actually got to walk down the red carpet. For about five seconds, during which nobody looked remotely impressed by either of us, understandably. Needless to say, I didn't bother checking the Evening Standard the next day to see if either of us had made their best-dressed list.

Being the cool, sophisticated, metropolitan types that we are, we also spent a fair bit of time goggling any time we passed noteworthy theatrical types as we all made our way in: we saw David Hunter arriving, we passed Kerry Ellis in the foyer, Daniel Boys was sat in the same row as us, and we're confident that we saw at least one Strallen over the course of the evening. Another aspect that definitely ranked this above your average visit to the cinema was the quality of snack: upon taking our seats we discovered complimentary bottles of water and bars of Green & Black's chocolate. I had genuinely forgotten how much fun it is to eat at the cinema without having to take out a payday loan beforehand.

Before the screening started, director Rob Marshall stood up in front of us all to say a few words. He welcomed and pointed out several very important members of the crew (I craned around several times before realising that I was extremely unlikely to recognise any of these people) before calling all of the cast who were present up on stage: Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, James Corden and Frances De La Tour to name just a handful. At the end of his speech, James Corden grabbed the microphone and proceeded to say a very public goodbye to his parents, because he was leaving for America as soon as the screening was over and this was the last chance he was going to get to say it to them. (Whether you found this moving or self-indulgent probably depends on your general level of tolerance for James Corden, but I have to admit I "aww"ed along with everyone else.)

I'll leave the film reviewing to the proper critics, but suffice to say I thoroughly enjoyed this adaptation. Some Sondheim purists may be disappointed by some of the concessions that have had to be made - some songs, characters and subplots have been dropped, and some character's fates have been tidied up to make them a little more family friendly - but there's still plenty of darkness at the heart of the tale, and some fine performances from the cast. Adapting musicals for the big screen can be a tricky task, but the makers of Into The Woods can hold their heads up high.

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