Seeing Double

It was a wise move for manager Simon Fuller to turn his post-Spice Girls band S Club 7 into a Monkees-style TV franchise. Now an S Club of six (Jo, Hannah, Jon, Tina, Rachel and Bradley) is limbering/lumbering up for a fourth series, for which this Easter (2003) release is a cash-in. The sheer geniality and unpretentiousness of S Club make the romp more or less tolerable, with pop promo director Nigel Dick barely bothering to stray from the now standard sub-Lester levity of the 'band on the run' movie. The twist introduced here is a neat junior league po-mo conceit. Tired after their world tour, the 'guys' find themselves replaced by more compliant cloned rivals and have to flit, now skint, from Barcelona to the US to recover their identities and crowns. But don't worry - they carry their ontological insecurities with British sang-froid.