Swing

Why not have a Lisa Stansfield concert, with Clarence Clemens on sax, and chuck the rest? In her first film role, she knocks spots off the lot of them. Just wait for Baby, I Need Your Loving and feel the goose bumps. It makes you forget how bad the script is.

After the fabulous success of The Full Monty, you expect clones. This is the first in a long line, no doubt.

Unemployed Liverpudlian ex-con (Hugo Speer) starts a swing band with the usual bunch of yo-yos, plus Mighty Mac (comedian Alexei Sayle) and his dark suited Orangemen, as brass section. One-time-girlfriend, Joan (Stansfield), now married to a nasty cop, is on vocals. The trials of bad gigs and marital disharmony lead down a well worn path of true love and great dance tunes.

Speer, the well-endowed one amongst Monty's dole queue chorus line, fails to leave an impression. He's still a little camp, a little cheeky. Stansfield stands out as actress and singer. What British producers need to do now is find her a proper movie, not some half-baked comedy romance on the cornbread circuit.