Mamma Mia!

In Phyllida Lloyd’s 2008 film, Sophie invites three men named in her mother’s old diary to the Greek island where her wedding is days away. Because the story is laid over the songs, characters change their minds between two verses, and the stage show’s logic is more exposed on screen. The voices are not polished to studio standard: the passages sung by Pierce Brosnan drew open mockery from reviewers, and the mix does not hide it. Lloyd had directed the original London staging in 1999, and this was her first feature. The island is called Kalokairi but the shoot was on Skopelos, where the chapel exterior is Agios Ioannis on a hundred metre rock near Glossa, its interior a set at Pinewood. The hotel courtyard went up on Pinewood’s 007 stage, its real trees kept alive by automatic watering, and Damouchari harbour is not on the island but on the mainland coast of Pelion. The songwriters appear too: Benny Andersson at a piano, Björn Ulvaeus dressed as a god. British cinemas took 188 million dollars, ahead of 144 million from North America. A good fit if you can take a plot arranged to deliver the next number on cue. Not for anyone who wants these songs from trained voices, since the casting favours acting over clean singing.