…ABBA is back!  (Waterloo plays instead of Jaws ominous duh-dum theme…)

After a 16-year absence, they hold this week’s number 1 spot on the UK Pop chart thanks to the sleeper hit movie of the summer – Mama Mia!

Created from the West End and Broadway stage musical where a young woman invites three men one of whom is her unknown biological father to her wedding unbeknownst to her mother who never wanted to see any of the three again, you get the very simple plot premise. In classic Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor big movie musical style (without any of their talent), the cast sings, cavorts and dances across a beautiful Greek island resort owned by Streep’s character Donna, its villages and white sand beaches. You can tell they enjoyed it and the campy over-the-top performance of Christine Baransky and Julie Waters as Streep’s lust-for-life and anything else male filled their friends Rosie and Tanya. A wonderful understated performance by the irascible Stellan Skarsgård, as writer Bill Anderson, rounds out a stellar, non-musical cast.

It opened a week before its US limited release across the EU (ABBA’s heartland) and has been playing to sold out, laugh-out-loud, sing-along audiences mostly aged 40-60. We all chuckled knowingly aloud as a group of bored teens walked out of the screening we witnessed. Several times I leaned over to my wife and said, “I cannot believe that Meryl Streep (who last played an emotionless stone-cold CIA boss in Rendition and before that, tough as brass nails Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada), James Bond and Mr. Darcy are all singing so badly!”

You had to be there to know their history and personal drama. From Eurovision winning global chart-topping hit song ‘Waterloo’ (something that would not be possible today with Eastern bloc voting), to the internal divorce struggles played out in public (that, ironically, created some of their strongest and deepest lyrics and work) and their string of all-time bubble gum music megahits for which we knew every, single word… (but would never admit knowing), this movie took us all back to a much simpler time.

The irony is it was cool growing up to claim to not know and even dismiss them. ABBA could not hold a candle to Peter Frampton, Boston, Journey, Alice Cooper and Van Morrison on the cool meter. Yet we could not miss them on any radio station and even Colin Firth, interviewed before the movie release said, “the chances of me listening to an ABBA record during that time were about the same as reading a Jane Austin novel.”

I have to say, without a doubt, it is a terrible movie. The singing is beyond awful. Simon Cowell would live to savage the leading six singers on any American Idol episode. It has zero artistic or historical value. That said, no one could stop laughing, tapping their feet, playing air piano or guitar and/or singing their way through it. To see Jane Austin’s Mr. Darcy (Colin Firth), James Bond V (Pierce Brosnan) and the uber actress star of every major woman’s movie role of the last two decades Meryl Streep singing ABBA tunes so badly and having such a blast doing so whilst filming on a stunningly beautiful Greek island, was worth the price of admission.

My wife and I giggled and sang along with everyone else and I kept looking around the theatre for water guns and wedding rice to throw thinking perhaps this was the next cult film in the genre of The Rocky Horror Picture Show… It crashed through taboos as Ms. Streep played ‘cougar’ was paired at age 59 with the younger (55-year old) Mr. Brosnan. It skewered everyone and everything and was the epitome of political incorrectness.

That’s probably why I loved it and yes, at Tesco last week, spent £8.97 for the gold album to play and sing along with in the car.

Damn you Agneta!!!!