A TV comedy by Valentine Guinness and Owen Griffiths

6 x 30-minute episodes

It is 1993. Britpop is in its heyday, and has given a new lease of life to the British music scene. New bands are springing up everywhere. This is the olden days: no mobile phones and no internet.

Luke Wolverton is an aspiring singer-songwriter and yearns to make it big. Unfortunately he has at least two problems: he is an Old Etonian and 34 years of age. Either of these drawbacks on their own would disqualify him from the music business, so he hasn’t got a chance. Or has he?

Luke’s rock band is a motley crew of lads in their late twenties with various day jobs:

Guitarist Rhys (“It’s pronounced Reece, not Riss, you arsehole!”) Bateson is another public school boy. An insufferable perfectionist and equipment geek, he has trouble dealing with his OCD. Never out of a leather jacket, he is angry about most things.

Bassist Andy Tomkins is a quiet artistic type who nevertheless is happy to bitch up the other two whenever possible. He is an ex-schoolmate of Rhys, and his oldest and only friend.

The drummer, Nigel Wood (real name Zacky Pimientario) is an extremely annoying American who thinks he is too cool for school and should have been born Jim Morrison. He never misses an opportunity to say how rubbish he thinks the band is.

Cockney keyboard player Gavin Greenwood has an IQ of 160, but he is permanently stoned on skunk. He has a piece of paper with the song chords written on it, but it keeps falling off his organ.

Their manager is a pompous no-hoper called Christopher Brompton. He likes to be referred to as “The Major”. His best days were spent beating boys as a prefect at Winchester College.

The band play in empty pubs, woo record company executives, get drunk, argue, get into fights, and try a hundred image changes. They try ridiculous gimmicks, have hopeless romantic liaisons and beg friends and family to come to gigs. The other bands they meet are so young as to seem like children. Luke, Rhys and Andy bust their guts to make the music sound good, but feel constantly undermined by the cack-handedness of the others, particularly their so-called manager.

The story is a ongoing circus of angry girlfriends, tuneless backing singers, grumpy sound engineers, pretentious photographers, ridiculous stylists and grimy rehearsal rooms, each more preposterous and morale-sapping than the last.

Is there any hope?