The plans to stage this city’s first proper celebration of St George’s Day are coming together thanks to the hard work of Martin Popplewell, the landlord of Sankt Nikolai pub and restaurant, a newly-opened traditional English boozer on Nikolajgade in the city centre (www.sanktnikolai.dk).
Unlike St George of Palestine, Martin is a proud Englishman, but not too haughty to take to the streets in his bid to bring his patron saint’s day to the Copenhagen public. Undeterred by his failure to find a horse (touch wood, Richard III was shortly slain after his), Martin, between 5:30 and 6pm on Monday April 23, will be Monty Pythoning it around the fountain outside the Dubliner with his head barman Jon. For those of you who don’t know who the ‘Knights who say Ni’ are, that means Martin (swapping King Arthur for St George) will be pretending to ride a horse to a coconut-shell soundtrack supplied by hunchbacked Jon.
And this moment of street theatre is a mere appetiser for the main event, the saving of the damsel in distress (please, not another male member of the bar stuff) and slaying of the dragon outside Nikolai Church between 18:00 and 19:00, after which proceedings will continue at the pub with lashings of Somerset cider and a new cask ale – the start of a new initiative that will see Sankt Nikolai introduce a new one every Thursday night – and servings of Lancashire Hot Pot, Fish ‘n’ Chips and Cornish Pasties.
To be fair, most of this is available on any day at the pub, which has already in its short existence developed a good reputation for being the closest this city has to a proper English pub. But being off the beat and track, it doesn’t get much passing tourist trade and badly needs fellow Anglos and Anglophiles to turn up and find out what all the fuss is about.
Meanwhile, this week’s highlights are either seasonal – Easter and the Thai festival of Songkran – or cinematic: be it the start of CPH:PIX or finally the chance to see ‘Armadillo’ in English, courtesy of Cinemateket.
It’s a great start to a fun month, which with George’s Day coming up, will only get better.
