This film was released 18th March 2016, and is no longer screening.

With money tight in a boozy, middle-class 1980s Dublin household, youngest son Conor (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) is forced to transfer from his private school to the Brothers in Synge Street where posh new boys are easy prey for the school bullies. Working on relationship advice and musical cues from his much-admired, louche, older brother (Jack Reynor), he forms a band to attract a sophisticated older woman (Lucy Boynton) who he persuades to appear in a series of music videos.

Presenting a pitch-perfect reconstruction of Dublin teen life in the 1980s, director John Carney (Once) has scored another triumph with this hilarious, warm-hearted musical tale.

Notes by Sunniva O’Flynn