‘Fame’ remake shows some films don’t live forever

When Alan Parker's iconic film Fame came out in 1980, he drew back the curtain on a world that had rarely been documented before - the performing arts. The all-singing, all-dancing antics of Leroy, Coco, Bruno and the other students and staff at the New York High School for the Performing Arts were genuinely new to cinema audiences - and so were the characters' personal dramas.

Now as director Kevin Tancharoen's remake (above left) opens across the UK, the question is whether, 30 years later, this insight can still appeal. After all, hardly a night goes by without a chance to watch a reality TV show that deconstructs all the goings-on that the original film (above right) demystified.

ITV's X-Factor - and before it Pop Idol - has accustomed us to the trials that singers must put themselves through before they make it to a professional standard. The BBC's Fame Academy even cheekily stole the name and concept of Parker's film.

Strictly Come Dancing reveals the practice and pain that it takes to nail a dance routine, and in How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? we were treated to open auditions for the West End production of The Sound of Music.

Aware that its audience is now so knowledgeable, the team behind the Fame remake has taken the new film in a new direction. It is now a teen movie in the mould of Disney's High School Musical movie franchise or the Hannah Montana TV series. This in itself is a post-modern twist, since both shows owe much to the original Fame.

The great shame of this treatment is that the 24-year-old Tancharoen has dispensed with some of the grittier material behind the original film, which addressed homosexuality, abortion and drug abuse.

Indeed Parker's original was rated R in America, meaning no-one under 17 could watch it unaccompanied. The remake limps in as a PG, and eschews edginess in favour of big ensemble dance routines. Bearing in mind the director's past job as Britney Spears's choreographer, this is no great shock. ·