WE’RE celebrating summer at The Brewhouse with a tribute to one of the world’s most famous film directors, Steven Spielberg.

We kick off with Saving Private Ryan on June 6, re-released to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings, when Allied Forces invaded Nazi-occupied France.

Critically acclaimed as one of the greatest World War II films ever, the first 27 minutes of the film stand out as a brutally realistic recreation of what the soldiers endured as they attacked Omaha Beach – involving in reality over 150,000 British, Canadian and American troops, with nearly 10,000 casualties on that horrific first day.

The realism of its portrayal of the horrors of war resulted in Saving Private Ryan being nominated for 11 Oscars and winning five in 1999.

Then on July 5, we change pace to the ‘what if’ sci-fi reincarnation of an eccentric millionaire’s desire to create an amusement park: Jurassic Park. What could possibly go wrong, bringing dinosaurs back from extinction? Apart from a storm knocking out the power supply to keep the dinosaurs locked up.

As you watch, listen out for all the animals that made the dinosaurs roar: the T-Rex was a combination of dog, penguin, tiger, alligator and elephant sounds; the Velociraptors were elephant seal pups, dolphins and walruses; the Dilophosaurus were howler monkeys, hawks, rattlesnakes and swans, with the Brachiosaurs only needing whale and donkey sounds.

Finally, on August 2, we’re going to need a bigger boat as Spielberg’s classic monster movie, Jaws, splashes onto the big screen at The Brewhouse, 44 years after its original release. It was a film that should never have happened: it ran over budget, the script was still being written as scenes were filmed, and the mechanical shark specially built for the film sank to the bottom of the ocean – and the first director was fired after a production meeting where he kept calling the shark a whale.

But Spielberg’s shark saga tapped into our darkest fears about what lies beneath – scaring enough people into avoiding diving into swimming pools. And final fun fact: among Jaws’ biggest fans was Fidel Castro, who reportedly interpreted the shark attacks as symbolic of an attack on American capitalism.

So, there’s no excuse not to come and join in our Summer of Spielberg (especially with tickets only costing £7 a go) and enjoy a bit of revisiting movie history.

Sue Windley, Marketing and Communications Manager at The Brewhouse Theatre