When Carl asks Benny what he had in mind, comedy or tragedy, it’s a rhetorical question. The frail comedic elements of this film have already left with stage fright. Benny has called upon his old mate to reform a band that was the biggest thing in show business. Boytown suffers its first significant coronary around this time for there’s no sign of drive in the admittedly plain lives of five, forty-something men (although one of the group now lives with his grandmother and works as a lollypop man). So why is Benny on the comeback trail? Credibility, or the lack thereof, is a consistent problem. Coronary number two occurs shortly after their former label resigns them to repeat the 80’s formula. The sight of portly men in stretched lycra and inappropriate leather has its moments (think Mardi Gras at 7am), but it’s a thin conceit.

After failed singles, the group reinvents itself again – this time as a pastel Westlife for Mature Aged Women, singing songs like Love Handles, Dishpan Hands and Cellulite Lady. With a satirical edge, it might have worked. Instead, we’re expected to believe an artificial sense of normalcy simply because the characters do. No one on-screen seems surprised by their unlikely success, and few off-screen are interested. Coronaries three to seven appear at regular intervals as the group tour, break-up, reform and finally appear at the Aria Awards. With the narrative structure of bullet points, Boytown lurches toward the end without any thought to naturalism or reality. What had been a terrific idea is squandered by self-satisfied, well-connected artists with no apparent faith in the redraft. There’s the real tragedy.

// COLIN FRASER