Christians on Ageing Culture Club will be meeting online on Friday 14th February 2025 from 1.30pm until 3pm.

The theme of this meeting will be 'Romance in Later Life'. We will be exploring how romantic relationships in older age are depicted in the arts, film, fiction and other genres.

Is love in later life different from young love? In the current fashion for age-blind casting in the theatre, could a 74-year-old Geraldine James convincingly convey the emotions of Shakespeare’s Rosalind in Twelfth Night, especially her love for Orsino? Read more at https://www.theguardian.com/stage/article/2024/aug/14/age-blind-casting-geraldine-james

What of real life? Is dating common among older people? Or does pairing up by older people tend to be facilitated by other means, perhaps through shared interests or meeting a love from the past? Does romance in later life raise issues foreign to those of younger lovers?

We hope to share real-life stories and try to relate them to depictions of romance in later life in the arts, whether plays, films, television programmes, poems, paintings, photographs or dance. Catherine Shoard, film editor at The Guardian, will join us to inform our discussions.

Here are a few films you might care to view beforehand:

• Hampstead: Diane Keaton falls for Brendan Gleeson's tramp in this charming later life romcom.

• My Favourite Cake: An Iranian woman begins dating again in her early 70s, with some success, although the police and some of her friends are morally outraged.

• Much Ado about Dying: In Simon Chambers' documentary about caring for his theatrical uncle, we see how an apparently unwise infatuation with a carer may be mutually beneficial.

• The Mother: Anne Reid begins a relationship with a much younger man, played by Daniel Craig, to the outrage of her children.

• The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel: Romance both withers and blossoms amongst the English ex-pats (Bill Nighy, Penelope Keith, Judi Dench), while the potentially inappropriate desires and unresolved romantic attachments of other in the group are also explored.

• Book Club: All four women in this hit comedy explore later life romance in various guises: one on the internet, one with an ex, one less successfully with her current husband, and one (Diane Keaton) with a new man, who she keeps secret from her over-protective children.

• Death in Venice: Dirk Bogarde plays an older man infatuated with a teenage boy he encounters on the beach.

We look forward to seeing you on 14th February 2025 online.