Connolly and Nail team up for new 'Spinal Tap'

Billy Connolly and Jimmy Nail are to star in a new film about a Seventies rock band, which its producers hope will rival the cult classic Spinal Tap.

The film, Still Crazy, is a romantic comedy written by Dick Clement and Ian la Frenais, the writers of Porrridge, The Likely Lads and other sitcoms.

Spinal Tap was a spoof on a rock band's adventures and break-up. Still Crazy will, the producers say, be a more serious attempt to chronicle a band's life in the Seventies.

The film has been developed by British producer Amanda Marmot through her production company, Marmot Tandy, and is part of the renaissance in the British film industry. It is partly financed by the national lottery though it will be distributed by TriStar Pictures, an arm of Sony Pictures Entertainment Company.

Shot on location in Britain, the film tells of a band called Strange Fruit who break up in 1978 then get back together at a reunion concert in 1998.

The film charts their increasingly desperate efforts to recapture the magic, the lost opportunities and missed romances of their prime.

Connolly, who recently starred alongside Judi Dench in Mrs Brown, plays the band's road manager. Nail plays the bassist, with Bill Nighy as the group's leader, Stephen Rea as the keyboardist and Timothy Spall as the drummer.

Gary Kemp who was in the group Spandau Ballet and is now anm actor has been coaching the cast on "how to be rock stars."