ON April 17, 1966, ABC AM Radio began a series so loved by its audience that not even the opening of ABC FM took it off air. John Cargher, showcasing great singers from the classic repertoire, broadcast “Singers of Renown” until his death 42 years later aged 81, three days after announcing his final program. 

Cargher introduced Australian listeners to Florence Foster Jenkins.

We laughed at her heartbreaking inability to achieve correct pitch or rhythm or to sustain a note. She indeed sounds truly dreadful. Her nine recordings seemed then to be the ultimate in vanity. Stephen Frears’ film recounts her final year.

Portraying Florence, Meryl Streep stands close to, if not on, the pinnacle of her illustrious career. Her affection for the woman she was portraying is palpable. Playing the men who most loved her, Hugh Grant as common-law husband St Clair Bayfield and Simon Helberg as accompanist Cosme McMoon both give stout support to Streep’s domination of the film. It’s hard to decide whether Nicholas Martin’s screenplay wants us to regard both men as devoted most to Florence or to her wealth.

We may even classify Grant’s performance as a sea change in a career that hitherto seemed doomed to languish in light comedy.

“Florence Foster Jenkins” combines comedy with an appeal for us to sympathise with Florence for the years in which admirers from New York’s upper crust and the musical profession whom she believed to be her most enthusiastic friends had vested interests in keeping her secret.

Frears’ direction of a theme that might have offered Florence as merely a laughing stock is careful and respectful. The costumes, locations and re-creations of New York’s 1944 environment are convincing, close to authenticity to which dashes of invention do no harm.

At Dendy, Palace Electric, Capitol 6 and Hoyts