Arrived, Last Night

Five thousand. That was the rough headcount the Metropolitan police gave of the crowd that was squeezed into Leicester Square last night to see Orlando Bloom - AAAIIIEEE! - and a good slice of the rest of the massive Kingdom Of Heaven cast and its director attend the film's European Premiere. Barmy fans - who had turned up from as far away as Italy - were greeted with equally balmy weather; as the stars and guests strolled in, the sun was still up, the sky was in its last shades of afternoon blue, the odd cloud dotted the sky, and there was enough cheering in five minutes to sustain the next three Olympics with suitable applause. If you didn't understand Sir Ridley Scott's sense of humour, you might have thought he was being dour when, safely inside beyond the eardrum-shattering screams, he described the scene. After all, here's a man used to dealing with hordes of screaming bodies. But this is different - there's no calling 'cut' at a crazed 14 old girl in the throes of Orlymania - EEEEEEKKK! "It's hell out there", he said with the slightest of grins. But Scott wouldn't have had it any other way. Having worked with his leading man ever so briefly before on Black Hawk Down ("Yeah, the first time he just threw me out of a helicopter" remarked Bloom), the director explained "I'm thinking about all kinds of people ahead of time while we're discussing the script, and the person that started to keep coming around again and again was Orlando. It's always an intuitive decision." And he wasn't the only one praising the screamed-at one. Co-star Eva Green loved Bloomy, but to begin with, he had her puzzled. "I was very lucky to work with him, because he's very charming, down to earth, very grounded