This insipid confection about a 17-year-old A-level student who passes herself off as older in order to manage a band she admires is so blandly wholesome and inoffensive, given the music-scene milieu, you can only assume it’s intended for the pre-teen market. Perhaps it’s meant to access the little sisters and brothers of the demographic that will go for How to Build a Girl, a considerably naughtier, wittier music-themed coming-of-age flick adapted from Caitlin Moran’s semi-autobiographical novel that comes out next week. The comparison is perhaps unfair because this film is about as accurate a reflection of how people break into the music business as In the Night Garden is about temperate-zone forest habitats.
Kat Malone (Ella Hunt) is a spoiled posh kid who lives with her career-minded mother (Katherine Kelly) and yoga-mad hippie gran (Joanna David). She attends a private school where she is constantly dodging the teachers’ attempts to confiscate her mobile. She scams her way into a gig with BFF Jane (Jennifer Leong) and talks floppy-haired bassist Alex (Dougie Poynter of McFly) into letting her manage their power-chord beat combo, an outfit with the atrocious name of Dollar Day. At first she has some success, particularly when she manages to replace the suddenly departed drummer with a talented busker (Idris Debrand) who she spots in the street. But everything goes Pete Tong once they start a mini tour of the Cotswolds.
The band’s performances are on a par with afternoon soap operas like Hollyoaks, while the music (credited to Some Velvet Morning) sounds too much like the sort of middling pop pap my generation used to listen to instead of the hip stuff cool cats under 20 are grooving to these days.
• Kat and the Band is available on digital platforms.
