I'll Be There

He's been a freestyle Scottish hairdresser in Hollywood (The Big Tease) and a dope-growing Scottish gardener in Cornwall (Saving Grace). Now Ferguson takes a turn as a washed-up '80s rock relic - Scottish variety - boozing his days away in the lush folds of a Welsh country manse. Lest that sound like thin situation comedy, he plays his own director, too. But the less said about his fiddle-dee-dee assortment of wipes, picture-within-picture montages and boxy framing and editing the better. Most likely his intended audience won't be setting down their knitting to pass such carping judgments. For Ferguson's secret weapon is his first time co-star, warbling Welsh 'angel' Charlotte Church. Zipping about in a pretty pink scooter and helmet ensemble, she plays the cherubic fatherless daughter of small town hairdresser Jemma Redgrave, who lives down the road from Ferguson's estate (and its dormant recording studio) and bears him an unaccountable grudge. Similarly, she hasn't a lot of time for her old man, Joss Ackland, a leatherbound rock'n'roll recalcitrant who's parked his tour bus on their doorstep. There's also Brown, genially low key as Ferguson's old drummer pal; and McNeice as a slimy record exec with halitosis, the closest the film comes to a source of dramatic tension.