The ongoing campaign against the gentrification of Soho is the subject of this well-meaning but scattershot documentary. At least, that’s how it starts out. But then, maudlin and rambling as a self-pitying drunk, the film meanders off to take in a housing campaign in Brixton and the protests that met the closure and redevelopment of the celebrated LGBTQ nightspot the Black Cap in Camden. A jostling, rambunctious score does little to pull together the disparate threads. Soho faces including Stephen Fry, Johnny Deluxe and Joseph Corré make a case for the cultural value of the area, which is currently being Crossrail-roaded out of existence.
To its credit, the film attempts to provide the same kind of open space for creativity that is being whittled away by the redevelopment of London’s grubbier fringes. The result, however, is an extended sequence featuring a semi-clad Lindsay Kemp writhing pallidly on a beach and club impresario Philip Sallon gleefully mugging for the camera. A little more time spent on the history of Soho would have gone a long way.
