It's Trad, Dad!

Having cut his teeth on Telegoon shows like Idiots Weekly and A Show Called Fred, expatriate American Lester proceeded to take the staid British film industry by storm with this firework display of cinematic trickery. Boldly throwing realism out of the window, he uses a wafer-thin plot about a Toy Town mayor determined to stamp out creeping jazzism as a device to explore the '60s music scene (25 numbers in 73 mintes), and to celebrate the coming 'Youth Revolution'. Some of the acts stand up better than others - Gene Vincent singing 'Space Ship to Mars', Gary (US) Bonds, the witty, modish Temperance Seven - but even the more boring trad jazz is filmed with such energy and inventiveness that it entertains.