Pop will film itself

As S Club reveal their plans to cross over to the silver screen, Sean Clarke explains why there is no spectacle quite so cringeworthy as pop stars playing themselves.

S Club are to make their feature film debut, in a film jointly created by Simon Fuller - not that chap nobody seems to like from Pop Idol, but the Spice Girls' former manager - and his brother Kim, whose CV largely consists of having written Spice World.

The obvious question raised by this news, and one that can only be answered with a deafening "No!", is: do we really need another Spice World?

Singers and musicians have been making the crossover to the movies for a long time, with varying degrees of success. Indeed, some do so well that it becomes unfair to think and write about them as "former pop stars" - Frank Sinatra the actor deserves a place in the Hollywood annals quite independently of Ol' Blue Eyes the singer. And I wager that many people will be unable to recall whether Jennifer Lopez was an actor-turned-singer or a singer-turned-actor. (She was a screen actor before a recording artist, in fact).

So the cry of "Please God, no!" provoked by S Club's plan comes not from worries of barbarians at the gates, but from the knowledge that while singers can make perfectly good actors, the world of pop is a terrible place to set a film.

Pop stars can stink to high heaven in any role you choose, though "lovable cockney rogue" always seems to bring out the worst in them: anyone who's endured Phil Collins in Buster deserves another day in paradise, and All Saints' Appleton sisters should never ever have got involved with Honest. But there's no spectacle so cringeworthy as watching pop stars playing themselves.

The orthodoxy is that it all started with the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night, which was a great film, inventively shot and packed with engaging performances from the boys themselves and memorable scenes. Well, maybe. But look again at the plot: the Beatles wake up, are pop stars, and play a concert. They're charming enough - you'd probably introduce them to your mother - and they deliver their lines with irresistible Scouse charm ... but they don't really do anything.

Similarly with Spice World. The girls get up, are pop stars, and play a concert. Nothing else. Admittedly, you can skip all that stuff about charm and memorable scenes from the last paragraph. The girls are the cinematic equivalent of fingernails being dragged over a blackboard, the whole thing looks like a curious mix of Labour manifesto, tourist board video and On the Buses and almost everyone involved comes out of it badly, not excepting Richard E Grant. But the real problem is the absolute lack of (1) plot (2) dramatic tension and (3) character development.

This kind of thing can work in small doses. I myself have a soft spot for the Monkees' TV show - though I'm only telling you that because I don't know you - and I'm unreliably informed that there's a certain charm to the S Club's antics in half-hour bursts. Like the Beatles, each member of the two bands has his own peculiarities and it can provide some passing amusement to see them playing off against one another. But making a film out of it is like trying to spin one of the stories about the Englishman, the Irishman and the Scotsman into a five-act play.

The truth is that pop stars don't have to stray very far from their pop star persona if you only give them a little plot to play with. Frank Sinatra acquits himself wonderfully in High Society playing an essentially supporting role in a solid, satisfying story, and Elvis gets by nicely as someone very similar to Elvis in Jailhouse Rock, and that's with only the barest of narratives.

I may be wrong: the plot details for the projected movie are still very vague. But it's my suspicion that when the S Club film has been shot, the cinema tickets have been bought and paid for, and the lights come up at the end, the plot will be just as vague as it is now.

I dream of a cheeky little musical starring the S Club 6 in which they triumph over adversity, learn a little about themselves, and maybe fall in love - all the things that are supposed to happen in a plot.

I'm not hopeful, but then I've never had a dream come true.