Northern Soul review: Coogan bluffs, the rest bluster

Elaine Constantine, writer and director of this fitful drama, does a decent job in conveying the texture of the soul scene in northern England during the early 1970s. The artificial fibres all seem charged with sufficient static electricity. Embassy Regal fags are everywhere. The restaging of a club night at the legendary Wigan Casino is an epic of period logistics. What a shame the film fails to live up to her passion for the era.

Northern Soul is, in short, a roaring, chaotic, often unintelligible mess. Elliot James Langridge, a Hollyoaks alumnus, is fine as John, a brassy kid who has some sort of trouble at home. It's hard to be more precise because, like much else in this film, the early establishing scenes tumble past in disordered clatter. It seems that he likes his grandad (Ricky Tomlinson), but believes that either mum (Lisa Stansfield) or dad (Christian McKay) has betrayed the old geezer in some way. More incoherent bellowing occurs and John blasts his way out of the house. He soon gets hooked on the raw soul records creeping in from the US and sets out on a career as a DJ.

The model is, perhaps, Ken Loach's Kes, with music standing in for falconry. Steve Coogan's bullying teacher – by far the best thing in the film – could certainly have been plucked straight from that world. But the storytelling is so muddled and the characters so poorly drawn that it proves impossible to care. More seriously still, Constantine never really sells us the music: it just throbs there in the matter-of-fact background. For a more coherent treatment of the material, seek out Shimmy Marcus's SoulBoy.