Certainly the biggest British musical in a couple of decades, and not half as bad as some critics allowed. Julien Temple's film re-creates the summer of 1958 when 'teenagers started' and so, he contends, did modern Britain, with all its racial warts and sores. It's a pity the film doesn't have the courage to go all the way with its approach of the first 15 minutes which vividly evokes nostalgia for the environments of Soho and Notting Hill in a slightly surrealistic and kaleidoscopic way, creating its atmosphere through a flurry of images, off-screen lines and surreptitiously prowling cameras. The clean exhilaration of all this, however, is sullied not only by the Notting Hill riots that form the climax but by a sub-plot (involving heroine Patsy Kensit) straight out of a British pop musical of the 1960s. Some of the musical sequences are very good, especially where David Bowie's mid-Atlantic mogul gives hero Eddie O'Connell a crash course in commercial corruption. Best of all is Ray Davies' retired spiv's guided tour through the 'quiet life' of his chaotic home. It's the last highpoint of a film which, for all its flaws, has enough imagination and drive to make it well worth seeing. Although Kensit is as wishy-washy as one remembers pop heroines of the period being, sharp-faced O'Connell is right on the ball as Colin, full of youthful snap. And there's a very funny performance from Lionel Blair as teeny-pop impresario Harry Charms, forever on the look-out for fanciable young boys. Bowie is good too, in a too brief appearance; the film could do with more of him.

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