“Gravity hits us all,” says bohemian Bif (Celia Imrie) to her strait-laced sister Sandra (Imelda Staunton). “The challenge is to make sure our spirits don’t travel quite as far.” And the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune which weigh heavily on Sandra’s shoulders and lengthen her stretch marks are not just age related, but the fact that her husband of 35 years Mike (John Sessions) has traded her in for a newer model in close family friend Pamela (Josie Lawrence) whose bodywork is described as “mainly filler” and is said to have had “more than one previous owner”.

Having put her husband and his career first, at the expense of her childhood ambitions to tread the boards as a “West End Wendy”, Sandra drowns her sorrows in whatever she can get her hands on and swaps her big house in the country for a spare room in her sister’s flat on an inner London housing estate in order to take stock of her next move. Which, after much cajoling, happens to be a dance move as she joins Bif and her friends at their regular community dance class.

Internet dater Jackie (Joanna Lumley) mistakes “swinging” for “swimming” on her list of hobbies and ends up as the deep filling in a carnal sandwich, but not before ditching her deeply religious fifth husband on the grounds that “he thought he was God, I didn’t.” Widower Ted (David Hayman) has swapped the terra firma of married life for the choppy waters of a canal barge. As has “the fixer” Charlie who had to sell his family home to pay for the care costs of his Alzheimer’s-stricken wife.

But what of Sandra? “Sometimes you just have to take a leap,” suggests the ebullient Bif. And leap she does into the awfully big adventure of a new life with a new love when she discovers that becoming a “free woman” is better than remaining a “kept lady”. A group trip to the “City of Love” beckons when the dance troupe are headhunted to perform at a major cultural festival. And a romantic holiday further afield is on the horizon. But when tragedy strikes and her husband comes a-calling, gravity once again weighs heavily on her shoulders.

Directed by Richard Loncraine (Richard III) and written by Nick Moorcroft and Meg Leonard, Finding Your Feet is a great advertisement for Age UK’s “Love Later Life” campaign. But as a bittersweet comedy it’s rather tame and populated with one too many closeups of actors on the verge of tears. Thankfully, the talent on show and the chemistry between performers adds sequins to an otherwise beige ballgown. And the seize the day moral, encapsulated by Bif’s observation “It’s one thing being scared of dying, it’s a whole different matter being scared of loving,” warms the cockles.”Gravity hits us all,” says bohemian Bif (Celia Imrie) to her strait-laced sister Sandra (Imelda Staunton). “The challenge is to make sure our spirits don’t travel quite as far.” And the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune which weigh heavily on Sandra’s shoulders and lengthen her stretch marks are not just age related, but the fact that her husband of 35 years Mike (John Sessions) has traded her in for a newer model in close family friend Pamela (Josie Lawrence) whose bodywork is described as “mainly filler” and is said to have had “more than one previous owner”.

Having put her husband and his career first, at the expense of her childhood ambitions to tread the boards as a “West End Wendy”, Sandra drowns her sorrows in whatever she can get her hands on and swaps her big house in the country for a spare room in her sister’s flat on an inner London housing estate in order to take stock of her next move. Which, after much cajoling, happens to be a dance move as she joins Bif and her friends at their regular community dance class.

Internet dater Jackie (Joanna Lumley) mistakes “swinging” for “swimming” on her list of hobbies and ends up as the deep filling in a carnal sandwich, but not before ditching her deeply religious fifth husband on the grounds that “he thought he was God, I didn’t.” Widower Ted (David Hayman) has swapped the terra firma of married life for the choppy waters of a canal barge. As has “the fixer” Charlie who had to sell his family home to pay for the care costs of his Alzheimer’s-stricken wife.

But what of Sandra? “Sometimes you just have to take a leap,” suggests the ebullient Bif. And leap she does into the awfully big adventure of a new life with a new love when she discovers that becoming a “free woman” is better than remaining a “kept lady”. A group trip to the “City of Love” beckons when the dance troupe are headhunted to perform at a major cultural festival. And a romantic holiday further afield is on the horizon. But when tragedy strikes and her husband comes a-calling, gravity once again weighs heavily on her shoulders.

Directed by Richard Loncraine (Richard III) and written by Nick Moorcroft and Meg Leonard, Finding Your Feet is a great advertisement for Age UK’s “Love Later Life” campaign. But as a bittersweet comedy it’s rather tame and populated with one too many closeups of actors on the verge of tears. Thankfully, the talent on show and the chemistry between performers adds sequins to an otherwise beige ballgown. And the seize the day moral, encapsulated by Bif’s observation “It’s one thing being scared of dying, it’s a whole different matter being scared of loving,” warms the cockles.

Director: Richard Loncraine
Writers: Meg Leonard, Nick Moorcroft
Stars: Timothy Spall, Imelda Staunton, Joanna Lumley
Peter Callaghan
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