Living Apart Together

On tour to promote his breakthrough hit single, Richie is a singer-songwriter on the cusp of fame when he has to return to his home town of Glasgow for an unexpected funeral. Accustomed to using the romantic lives of his friends as material for his songs of heartache and loss, he finds himself caught up in his own melodrama when his wife Evie leaves him for the arms of another.

Made for the nascent Channel 4 in 1982, Living Apart Together initially seems an odd, rather slight choice for a full digital restoration, but writer-director Charles Gormley's light-footed approach to character and dialogue quickly beguiles as he follows Richie and friends on an odyssey through the pubs and clubs of Glasgow on a search for Evie. The film is also wonderfully evocative of a certain kind of aspirational living from the time - all vertical-loading record players and flokati rugs - while the bouffant BA Robertson proves an an amiable leading man. [Keir Roper-Caldbeck]