Soulboys of the Western World. (15.)
Directed by George Hencken. Featuring Tony Hadley, Gary Kemp, Martin Kemp, Steve Norman and John Kebble. 110 mins. In cinemas for one night only, Tuesday 30th.
For a few months last year it seemed that you couldn't go round Soho without seeing a brother Kemp emerging from a screening looking highly pleased with himself. The cause of their satisfaction wasn't a sequel to The Krays, but a documentary on the band that made them famous, Spandau Ballet. Their journey from North London childhoods to 80s global stardom via Blitz club trendiness and the New Romantic movement isn't really one of pop's great stories, but it has a nifty title and is well enough told to make for an engaging two hours.
Henchen's first directorial job is greatly helped by the fact that the band seemed to have filmed themselves constantly – generally without shirts on. The attempts to link the band's rise and fall with Thatcherism may seem fanciful but the dates more or less match and at the time Spandau, Duran and the other New Romantics were very much seen as the Tory's pop emissaries, preaching the virtues of aspirational escapism and sweeping away the discontent of punk.
It is the inverse of Pink Floyd - The Wall; there is no dark side of fame, no life-on-the-road angst. It wasn't always glamorous – as one of them observes they spent most of 1983 miming on kid's shows – but pop stardom was all they ever wanted growing up and once they got it pop stardom was everything they ever wanted it to be. Though the band eventually fell apart and ended up in an acrimonious court case, the film has a happy ending with the band burying various hatchet to get back together for a reunion gig.
George Orwell said at fifty everybody has the face they deserve and in a similar vein, when a pop/rock band comes to have its reunion you see the band they always truly were. Spandau rose to fame by being the house band for the painfully fashionable Blitz club scene and espousing a particularly ludicrous form of fashion involving kilts and jackboots and shawls – they looked like they got dressed in a dark room with the light off, but had taken great time and care doing so. As soon as they wrote True their audience went from hip kids to housewives and thirty years on they look a wholly contented bunch of lads cheerfully leading the singalongs.
Directed by George Hencken. Featuring Tony Hadley, Gary Kemp, Martin Kemp, Steve Norman and John Kebble. 110 mins. In cinemas for one night only, Tuesday 30th.
For a few months last year it seemed that you couldn't go round Soho without seeing a brother Kemp emerging from a screening looking highly pleased with himself. The cause of their satisfaction wasn't a sequel to The Krays, but a documentary on the band that made them famous, Spandau Ballet. Their journey from North London childhoods to 80s global stardom via Blitz club trendiness and the New Romantic movement isn't really one of pop's great stories, but it has a nifty title and is well enough told to make for an engaging two hours.
Henchen's first directorial job is greatly helped by the fact that the band seemed to have filmed themselves constantly – generally without shirts on. The attempts to link the band's rise and fall with Thatcherism may seem fanciful but the dates more or less match and at the time Spandau, Duran and the other New Romantics were very much seen as the Tory's pop emissaries, preaching the virtues of aspirational escapism and sweeping away the discontent of punk.
It is the inverse of Pink Floyd - The Wall; there is no dark side of fame, no life-on-the-road angst. It wasn't always glamorous – as one of them observes they spent most of 1983 miming on kid's shows – but pop stardom was all they ever wanted growing up and once they got it pop stardom was everything they ever wanted it to be. Though the band eventually fell apart and ended up in an acrimonious court case, the film has a happy ending with the band burying various hatchet to get back together for a reunion gig.
George Orwell said at fifty everybody has the face they deserve and in a similar vein, when a pop/rock band comes to have its reunion you see the band they always truly were. Spandau rose to fame by being the house band for the painfully fashionable Blitz club scene and espousing a particularly ludicrous form of fashion involving kilts and jackboots and shawls – they looked like they got dressed in a dark room with the light off, but had taken great time and care doing so. As soon as they wrote True their audience went from hip kids to housewives and thirty years on they look a wholly contented bunch of lads cheerfully leading the singalongs.
