"Age was invented by Satan," grumbles Ian McKellen’s octogenarian in Frank and Percy, a charming-if-ambling tale of late-life love. If that’s true – and this is a story with its share of illness, death and difficulty – then at least the two men at the heart of this comedy show its possible to stave off life’s inevitable decline with some open-hearted, open-minded behaviour.
Adapted from the play by Ben Weatherill, its also a reunion of sorts. Director Sean Mathias previously mounted Weatherill’s play in 2023, starring McKellen and Roger Allam, who both reprise their roles here. Meanwhile, Martin Sherman adapts, bringing him back into the orbit of Mathias and McKellen (they previously worked on both the stage and screen versions of Sherman’s play Bent, the searing drama about the persecution of gay people during the Holocaust).
Set around a Hampstead Heath looking resplendent in autumnal colours, this too is an LGBTQ+ story, albeit of a very different sort. McKellen’s Percy, a gay writer working on a book about climate change called 'Looking At The Awful Truth', and Allam’s Frank, a retired history teacher, meet on the Heath, walking their dogs – Bruno and Toffee. They strike up a friendship, meeting first for tea and cake, and later a pint down the pub.
View oEmbed on the source websiteBy the time Percy invites Frank for lunch at his house, affections are stirring. "I want to kiss you," he tells Frank, who has never even considered that he might be with a man (a widower, his wife Alice died of brain cancer). At first he backs away, but he gradually warms to the idea, and before long, love blossoms. But Percy is an unconventional sort. "He can be very cruel," says Dennis (Stephen Fry), his worrywart of an ex, who lives around the corner, despite splitting in the early 2000s.
With a soundtrack featuring gay pop legends like Pet Shop Boys ('Always On My Mind') and Erasure ('A Little Respect'), this is a film as brightly textured as Percy’s pink trousers. There’s a lovely scene where the 77-year-old Frank goes to his first gay Pride, dressed in all the colours of the rainbow, while Percy carries a placard that reads "Blessed Be The Fruits". He and Percy drink champagne and kiss in the street.
They also go and see Ira Sachs's brilliant LGBTQ+ film Passages, and without ever over-egging it, Mathias hints at how much life has changed, in a positive way, for the Queer community since Percy first came out in the 1970s. Perhaps less successful is Percy’s characterisation; despite having an off-screen daughter, born to a friend who was desperate to have a baby, his capricious behaviour isn’t always easy to buy.
Mathias's casting is also riddled with cosy star turns. Some work – like Joanna Lumley as Frank’s dementia-suffering sister-in-law and Baby Reindeer’s Jessica Gunning as his lodger, Emily, who amusingly thinks Frank has the hots for her when he says he’s in love. Others are bizarre blink-and-you’ll-miss cameos – like Rob Brydon as an Australian masseuse; Wayne Sleep as an exercise guru; Derek Jacobi as a charity shop worker; and Peter Davison as a vet.
All of this can be off-putting – almost as much as Percy’s pre-Frank dates on an app designed to pair older and younger men (including Ncuti Gatwa and Hugh Skinner). But if the humour doesn’t always land, the core relationship between Frank and Percy, gently performed by Allam and McKellen, is sweet and touching. Bringing to bear something of what it’s like for retirees to live in London (assuming you can afford it), it’s an uplifting story that shows that love can strike, like lightning, at any time.
Frank and Percy screened at the 2026 BFI London Film Festival and will be coming to cinemas in early 2027.
Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.