If you're just wanting another rendering of 'Chattanooga Choo-choo' or 'Taking a Chance on Love', you don't need to waste Judi Dench, Cleo Laine or Ian Holm on such cheap fare.
It's basically a 'Where are they now?' story about the reunion of a wartime girl band, The Blonde Bombshells, who've gone their very different ways, and whom the Judi character wants to present at her grand-daughter's school dance.
As for how they re-convene after fifty years, it all looks rather contrived. The recently widowed Judi wants to go back to playing the saxophone, and finds herself busking in the street, where the one (transvestite) male member of the group just happens to turn up. Played by Ian Holm, this nauseating character is a bankrupt car-thief who dodged the war by pretending to be a woman, but likes to show off his Military Cross, which he had simply acquired from a gutter drunk. But he plays the drums well enough to be accepted by the team, and seduces all of them, except Judi.
Along the way, we get Olympia Dukakis on fine form as a trumpeter and vocalist, June Whitfield as a Salvation Army bandleader, apparently too holy to play jazz (the devil's music), and our last-ever glimpse of Joan Sims ("The more we rehearse, the worse we sound!"), only months before her sad, lonely alcoholic death. One of the few good touches is the choice of Romola Garai as a very realistic Judi when young.
Sure enough Judi marries the Ian Holm character at last, against the wishes of her family, and reminds the school audience that the band-members are not old people, they're just people who've been young for rather a long time - 'Blonde Bombshells of the Third Age'.
Yik.
It's basically a 'Where are they now?' story about the reunion of a wartime girl band, The Blonde Bombshells, who've gone their very different ways, and whom the Judi character wants to present at her grand-daughter's school dance.
As for how they re-convene after fifty years, it all looks rather contrived. The recently widowed Judi wants to go back to playing the saxophone, and finds herself busking in the street, where the one (transvestite) male member of the group just happens to turn up. Played by Ian Holm, this nauseating character is a bankrupt car-thief who dodged the war by pretending to be a woman, but likes to show off his Military Cross, which he had simply acquired from a gutter drunk. But he plays the drums well enough to be accepted by the team, and seduces all of them, except Judi.
Along the way, we get Olympia Dukakis on fine form as a trumpeter and vocalist, June Whitfield as a Salvation Army bandleader, apparently too holy to play jazz (the devil's music), and our last-ever glimpse of Joan Sims ("The more we rehearse, the worse we sound!"), only months before her sad, lonely alcoholic death. One of the few good touches is the choice of Romola Garai as a very realistic Judi when young.
Sure enough Judi marries the Ian Holm character at last, against the wishes of her family, and reminds the school audience that the band-members are not old people, they're just people who've been young for rather a long time - 'Blonde Bombshells of the Third Age'.
Yik.