Tinchy Stryder - Catch 22 Album - Out Now!

It's many years since anyone made one of those music biopics in which the subject plays him or herself. Nevertheless, it's a sub-genre that might be worth reviving for Tinchy Stryder, not least because the story of his rise to fame sounds exactly like a pitch for a certain kind of undemanding British comedy. Two clueless middle-class kids (Rupert Grint, Nicholas Hoult from Skins) set up their own rap promotions company in Norfolk. They alight upon an unsigned east London rapper, funding his career with contributions from their grand-parents (Leslie Phillips and June Whitfield) and the local Catholic priest (Rowan Atkinson). One half of the promotions team also taps a loan from his parents, the Liberal Democrat MP for North Norfolk (Jim Broadbent) and his supportive wife (Celia Imrie). Much fish-out-of-water hilarity ensues (Ray Winstone as a nightclub doorman, Rhys Ifans as a shady recording studio manager, Tim Westwood, Lembit Opik and Lethal Bizzle as "themselves"), before they succeed in making their charge one of Britain's biggest pop stars (cameo from Johnny Vegas as Chris Moyles) thanks to two consecutive chart-topping singles: the latest of which, Never Leave You, leapfrogged the Black Eyed Peas and Beyonce to enter the charts at No 1 on Sunday.

In the film, all would end well. The final scene would feature Tinchy Stryder performing a rapturously received gig at the House of Commons, during which the prime minister (Matt Lucas) would turn to the stuffed-shirt civil servant who has mocked the rapper's progress (David Walliams) and say "Simpkins? Skank up, blud." "But sir!" "Simpkins, that's government policy!"