YOUNG at HEART

One of the great things about the holidays is that you can go to the movies during the day, what a luxury, so on our second day we headed off to the superb

mini-cinema complex at Matakana Village and saw Young at Heart.

It was fabulous, I laughed and cried all the way through it.

Young@Heart is a New England senior citizens chorus that has delighted audiences worldwide with their covers of songs by everyone from The Clash to Coldplay.

Based in Northampton, Massachusetts, (picturesque town), the group is made up of 20 or so spirited seniors who, under the skilful, patient and respectful guidance of conductor Bob Gilman specialize in reinterpreting rock, punk and R & B classics from a unique perspective. Their average age is 80 years with two members well into in their 90's.Two members of the chorus died during the making of the movie and with that sort of average age others will have died since the movie was completed during 2007.

The rehearsal sessions were hilarious but for me the two highlights were the group singing at a minimum security prison and the reaction of the young prisoners, and the climactic concert where Fred Knittle sang a most moving rendition of Coldplay's Fix You.

We left the theatre happy and uplifted. A documentary film with power and passion.