Still Crazy chronicles the fall and rise of fictional 70s rock band Strange Fruit as it attempts a comeback - complete with 40-something paunches and receding hairlines - in the 1990s.

Watching a bunch of middle-aged men behaving badly all over again might be an unappetising prospect, except that this is the work of Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais - those veterans of bittersweet comedy whose television triumphs to date include The Likely Lads, Porridge and Auf Weidersehen Pet.

Modesty and humour

Few writers have captured the bickering, bonding and boozing of male relationships with such a mixture of honesty and humour.

And any comparisons with spoof rockumentary This Is Spinal Tap are quickly dealt with.

"Although it's a film we revere, we didn't want to go that route," says La Frenais.

"We wanted Still Crazy to be believable. Even though there are laughs, there is a lot of pain and insecurity for the characters - and there's the terror of making a fool of yourself all over again."

Timothy Spall: The dim drummer

The ups and downs of life in a band marks a return to familiar territory for the two, who co-scripted Alan Parker's hit film The Commitments in 1991.

But the catalyst for Still Crazy was a conversation with musician Alan Price about the reunion of 60s group The Animals.

"He said that after five minutes in the dressing room with that lot he knew why they'd broken up in the first place," says La Frenais.

Twenty-odd years after Strange Fruit's apocalyptic last performance at the Wisbech open-air festival, the band have long gone their separate ways - into varying degrees of ordinariness, obscurity and outright poverty - until a chance meeting between the keyboard player, Tony (Stephen Rea), and the son of the original Wisbech festival organiser.

Seeing a way out of his current existence - filling condom machines around the bars and clubs of Ibiza - Tony tracks down the band's former manager Karen (Juliet Aubrey) and persuades her that Strange Fruit should take another stab at glory - at Wisbech 98.

Together, they round up the cantankerous bassist Les (Jimmy Nail), the dim drummer Beano (Timothy Spall), the monstrously vain lead singer Ray (Bill Nighy) and the cynical but ever-faithful roadie Hughie (Billy Connolly).

The original guitarist is mysteriously missing, presumed dead, so the band co-opt a brilliant young replacement (Hans Matheson), to add a touch of youth cred to their dinosaur line-up.

Bus to stardom

Pausing only to pick up Karen's 15-year-old, Clare (Diana Rigg's daughter Rachael Stirling, in her first screen role), the outfit is ready to ride the tour bus to stardom - or humiliation at the hands of fans and critics alike.

It is an ideal scenario for exploring the needs and fears of the baby boomers, the generation who invented rock'n'roll, as they come to terms with approaching middle age.

"It's a tough gig," admits Bill Nighy, whose Ray is a painfully funny incarnation of an ageing star hanging onto the trappings of Hello-style celebrity.

He smiles wryly at his character's antics: "Squeezing into tight velvet trousers, putting on three-inch heels and shaking your bum to popular rhythms - very few places are that lonely. If you pull it off, the rewards are enormous. If not, you look like a lemon."

Getting hip: Bill Nighy with Zoe Ball

An accomplished stage and TV actor, Nighy has played his fair share of washed-up men in the past, but this was the first time he took on such a demanding singing role.

He proved a natural, recording all his own vocals for the film's soundtrack of heavy 70s rock, which was specially commissioned from the likes of Foreigner's Mick Jones and Chris Difford of Squeeze.

But he admits to more than just the usual adolescent prancing in front of the mirror, toothbrush in hand: "There was going to be a band once, in the early 70s, which never made the stage. But we did rehearse a lot. We were going to be called The Love Ponies." He enunciates the name with obvious relish.

Gary Kemp, former member of 80s chart-toppers Spandau Ballet, and now an actor, was brought in to help the cast achieve the sound and feel of a close-knit group of musicians.

For the audience, the joy of the film lies in the hope that we might all get a second chance at fame and fortune, success and happiness - or failing that, at least a modicum of contentment that we gave it our best shot.

Timothy Spall concurs: "Strange Fruit end up finding some self-respect, and that's how it should be. If you can do it, however old you are, why not?"