I don’t know about the spirit of “Spinal Tap”, but the spirit of the much-loved “Victor Meldrew” - in the guise of “David St. Hubbins” (Michael McKean) is alive and well here! A better and more curmudgeonly companion for the newly married and cheese-shop owning “Nigel” (Christopher Guest) and glue-museum curator “Derek” (Harry Shearer) you couldn’t ask for as they reunite at the behest of the producer “Martin DeBergi” (Rob Reiner) for a last fly-on-the-wall to accompany their forthcoming one-night-only gig in New Orleans. If you thought the “Bros” movie (2018) showcased what happens when things don’t go well in a band, well you’re in for something altogether more acerbic as poor old “Derek” tries his best to mediate between his two sparring partner colleagues, whilst all three have to put up with the moronic interventions of their aptly named record company man “Howler” (Chris Addison) who wouldn’t know a drum kit from a Kit Kat. With tensions mounting and reminiscences differing, their recording sessions get underway in earnest and thanks to a few contributions from musical knights Paul McCartney and Elton John as well as Trisha Yearwood and Garth Brooks, who knows but “Stonehenge” could be played to the baying fans just once more? It’s a bit of a slow starter, this film, but once they’ve got themselves into gear and we start to hear their music as well as their bickering, the film starts to shine a little like the first outing from forty-odd years ago. The dialogue is pithy and funny, the lyrics to the songs would never have passed the code censors as euphemisms galore appear verbally and visually to cement the original creative tackiness of the concept. There’s an entertaining chemistry between McKean and Guest, Sir Elton joins in with some gusto (if perhaps not with the most convincing acting you’ll ever have seen) and it just goes to show that these ageing rockers still have what it takes to send up an industry that is riddled with parasitic hangers-on, old grudges and died-in-the-wool fans who’d turn up to the opening of an envelope. It hasn’t quite the sharpness of the original 1984 outing, but you still have to ask what chance their eleventh (or is it twelfth) drummer “Didi” (Valerie Franco) will make it through to the credits? Good fun!
