Quartet (Blu Ray)

Dustin Hoffman directs this comedy drama adapted by writer Ronald Harwood from his own stage play of the same name. Beecham House is a retirement home with a difference: it specifically caters for former artistes including one-time opera singers Cissy (Pauline Collins), Reginald (Tom Courtenay) and Wilf (Billy Connolly). Once part of a quartet, the three still take part in an annual concert to celebrate the birthday of composer Giuseppe Verdi. But this year things are complicated by the arrival of the fourth member of their quartet, Jean (Maggie Smith), a die-hard diva who also happens to be Reginald’s ex-wife. Theatrical temperaments and old hostilities flare as the dramatic foursome fuss, flirt and flounce their way through rehearsals, adhering emphatically to that old showbiz adage, ‘the show must go on’.