Frank and Percy review: McKellen and Allam’s late-life romance wins out despite the sugar
Ian McKellen and Roger Allam return to roles they first played on stage in a film version of Ben Weatherill’s play. The Guardian finds a tender love story, with some sentimentality and cartoonish supporting turns.
By
Farah Choudhury
In brief
- The Guardian reviewed Frank and Percy at the London film festival on 13 October 2026.
- Ian McKellen and Roger Allam reprise roles from Ben Weatherill’s stage two-hander.
- Martin Sherman adapts the play and Sean Mathias directs again.
- The critic finds tender sweetness, some sentimentality, and a terrific Joanna Lumley.
Ian McKellen and Roger Allam play two lonely men who cross paths on Hampstead Heath in Frank and Percy, a bittersweet comedy about finding love later in life. The film is an expanded screen version of Ben Weatherill’s two-hander, in which both actors originally starred on stage.
Martin Sherman adapts the play as screenwriter and Sean Mathias directs again. The film was reviewed as part of the London film festival, and the verdict comes from the Guardian, in a review published on 13 October 2026.
Two lonely men and their dogs
Both men walk their dogs on the Heath, and both, in the reviewer’s words, are lonely in their differing ways.
| Character | Played by | Background | Dog |
|---|---|---|---|
| Frank | Roger Allam | Retired history teacher whose wife died of cancer a few years ago | Toffee |
| Percy | Ian McKellen | Academic sociologist and climate scientist, acrimoniously separated from his ex-partner | Bruno |
Frank mopes around the garden centre, broods over memories from his marriage and volunteers at a charity shop. There he has to stand while Derek Jacobi’s character, a salaried employee, is allowed to sit. Percy goes on age-gap dates arranged through a niche website called Papa Search, with broad comic cameos from Ncuti Gatwa and Hugh Skinner, but he is not satisfied.
From a drink to a first kiss
The friendship grows, with Percy’s mischievous, donnish sense of fun meeting Frank’s stolid northern common sense. Then, over a drink, Percy asks whether it might be quite all right if he kissed Frank. Frank agrees, and it marks the start of a romance. He says: “I felt like I did when I had a cataract removed.”
The story also lets the pair consider what the experience means. Frank wonders whether he is bisexual, though the reviewer suggests it may be more that he is simply sexual, in a way he never expected at this time of life. Their social life, they realise, consists of funerals, which gives the film some of its bittersweet comedy.
Joanna Lumley’s Belinda, an elegant woman poignantly suffering from early onset dementia, is Frank’s sister-in-law. In a moment of lucidity she tells him: “How lucky you are to have a broken heart at 77!” The reviewer calls her contribution terrific.
The verdict: sweetness with some syrup
The review is warm but not uncritical. It finds a tender sweetness in this silver-years romance, alongside some sugary sentimentality, an autumnal woodwind score that tells the audience how to feel, and sitcom-cartoony characterisation in the all-star gallery of supporting turns. Sometimes that works and sometimes it does not.
The critic concludes that the movie’s easy-going good nature wins out, describing it as a love story as comforting as the cups of tea and slices of cake its characters are partial to. No release date or rating is given in the review.
Featured image. Source: Pexels. Credit: Efrem Efre. License: Pexels License.
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