This British film is set back in the dawn of the rock-'n-roll era, in 1958. All the characters in the film come from the lower strata of British social life, and none of them are nice people.

The plot seems to head off in one direction before coming to an abrupt halt. It begins with two characters who operate juke boxes around London. One juke box is doing very badly, and when they investigate, they discover that it is because the venue features live artists, especially one androgynous youngster who is shy and insecure until he steps out onto the stage. There, he is transformed into a pop sensation, driving the teenyboppers wild with emotional excitement.

The juke box operators bring in their boss, who becomes the singer's manager, and brings him to his own club.

So far, so good I thought... we are going to follow the kid's career and rise to international stardom.

No such luck.

What happens is that some more influential heavies, who 'control' the large halls around the country, come to make the club owner an offer that he can't refuse. It would be necessary to do a deal, since the singer has to appear in these large halls to build a following, create teen hysteria, make the 8 'o clock news, etc.

But there is more than meets the eye to this deal... the manager of the nightclub makes a deal with the heavies which will see him take over the nightclub, once the owner is out of the way.

The rest of the movie deals with how the manager pretends his innocence, while leading the other employees of the club up the garden path. Quite frankly, it all seemed a bit silly to me.

Some other characters bear mentioning... the owner's son is somewhat homosexual, and picks on a skinny worker, who he terrorises, and enjoys squeezing his testicles.

We learn later that his dad was a bit of a pederast (go on, look it up...) of sorts. This is supposed to explain the son's behaviour, who, apart from terrorising Skinny, also flirts with the singer.

The singer is of course unaware of his sex appeal to men as well as teenage girls, and later, he allows the nasty heavy to fiddle around with him a bit.

Along the way three men are killed, but nothing gets reported to the cops, and the film ends inconclusively.

The style makes a change from the typical Hollywood features. Sometimes the story skips along at a rapid pace, leaving the viewer to fill in the blanks, and other times, some scenes drag on much too long. I had some trouble, especially in the beginning, understanding the lower-class British accents.

Some people thought this film was amazing, my personal opinion is somewhat less than that. Your mileage may vary. If you liked Trainspotting, you will probably like this too.