Scripts

P&F = Phillip Scholfield and Fern Britton; JL = Jay Leno; GN = Graham Norton;

TS = Tim Samuels; G = George Clooney; J = Joan; W = Winnie; A = Alf

P&F: The Zimmers! Hurray!

JL: The Zimmers!

GN: The Zimmers!

TS: Who’d have thought it would come to this? When 40 isolated old people formed a rock band. This is the story of how The Zimmers, with a combined age of nearly 3,000 took the rock world by storm. And even took their message all the way to Hollywood.

G: Congratulations, you guys. Hello. Hi, I’m George. How are you? I hear you’re all over the charts.

TS: Four months ago, we set about making a film about what it’s like being old in Britain today. We found many who were lonely and forgotten, cast aside by society.

J: Hello.

TS: Hello, Joan. I’m Tim. Eighty-two-year-old Joan had been stuck indoors since a bad fall three years ago.

J: When I have left the flat, it’s only ever for something like that, the doctor’s, the dentist … you know, not … I haven’t been for pleasure.

TS: Nighty-nine-year-old Winnie was a serial care-home mover. She just couldn’t find one that felt right. Over the last decade, she’d moved care homes 16 times. Boredom drove Winnie from her last home. How do you feel about leaving this place?

W: Nothing but joy.

TS: And 90-year-old Alf was facing the closure of his local bingo club, which meant there would be nowhere to meet his friends.

A: I’m gonna lose these people, when that closes, it’s because I’ve gotta, I’ve gotta find new friends. And at our ages, it’s so difficult.

TS: So, we thought we would try and get these cast-aside old people heard again. And what better way than record a charity single, and try and storm the charts. All we had to do was convince them we were serious. Eventually, 40 pensioners took a leap of faith and came together at the world-famous Abbey Road Studios, to record a cover version of The Who’s “My Generation”. The name of their band, The Zimmers.

TS: It was a day when people made friends, and came alive again.

W: I’ve never kissed a 101-year-old yet.

TS: What’s more, it looked like we might even have a decent single on our hands. And when we made the video available online, it proved a sensation. Two million people watched it in the first few days.