Music and Lyrics (PG): Taunton Odeon WHEN I told a colleague I was going to watch romcom Music and Lyrics, which stars Hugh Grant in the male lead, he retorted: "But I've seen it all before!"

Don't make the same mistake.

OK, it goes the same way as every other romcom - boy, girl, boy meets girl, nothing happens, eventually boy loves girl, girl loves boy...

But this is a very funny film which should not be missed, great entertainment for a winter's afternoon or evening which will have you smiling - and humming some irritatingly catchy tunes! So it's up to me to convince you why you should still go to see Hugh Grant He is superb. We all know what he can do - charming, foppish, one-time floppy haired, nervously stuttering, archetypal upperclass, as seen in 4 Weddings, Englishman Who Went Up a Hill, Sense and Sensibility, Nine Months, Notting Hill. We know he can handle comedy - add Mickey Blue Eyes to those above - and can also be sleazy and slimy - add Daniel Cleaver in the Bridget Jones films. And he can turn his hand to a bit more action - Extreme Measures - and be a bit nasty if he wants to - About a Boy.

For me, he is the best English male actor we have - and have had for a long time. His timing is impeccable, he knows how to throw out comedy lines (he is apparently a very funny man when not in reel' life), and he is certainly the best romantic comedy lead in films today. For Hugh Grant read Cary Grant - but Hugh is better, as CG for me was always a bit wooden, and one-tone in speaking his lines.

So why is Music and Lyrics a winner? Because it is very funny, it's as simple as that - what a pity it wasn't also written by an Englishman. In this one Grant teams up again with Marc Lawrence (who directed Grant in Two Weeks Notice), and this time he is also the writer.

The film is scattered with one-liners, some of which will have you laughing out loud if not holding your splitting sides, but there is also some great comic action in which Grant succeeds magnificently.

This time he is Alex Fletcher, a member of mega-successful pop group PoP! from the '80s and the film starts with a video of one of the group's big hits, PoP! Goes My Heart', where Grant - and the other group members - brilliantly excels in sending up the genre with his hip swaying and pelvic thrusts. It is an obvious send up of Wham! and when the group splits, the George Michael character goes on to greater things as a knighted solo singer, while Alex is the Andrew Ridgeley character who is now reduced to singing wherever anyone will have him, school reunions and amusement parks, waving his hips at his now ageing but adoring former PoP! fans. But he seems to like it that way, and is even considering an invitation to join a new reality show Battle of the 80s Hasbeens', where former pop stars have to box each other to find the eventual winner and will only then be able to sing a song!

When he is asked by Britney Spears-like pop princess sensation Cora Corman (Haley Bennet), who is also a fan of Alex from his PoP! days, to write a song in three days and perform a duet with her on her latest album, he has a problem. He has not written a tune for ten years, and has never written lyrics "I once rhymed you and me' with autopsy."' That's where Drew Barrymore comes in. She is a stand-in plant care lady doing her best to kill off Alex's greenery in his apartment..

Barrymore (Charlie's Angels, Wedding Singer, Scream) gives a warm and amusing performance as the wacky and dotty Sophie who, surprise surprise, just happens to write lyrics, but has been harshly treated in a book by a former boyfriend and this has hit her confidence.

You can probably guess the rest - boy writes tune, girl writes words, pop princess sings song and we all live happily ever after - but there's some great comedy along the way, especially when Cora turns the tune into a 60s-style sitar-dominated song which she has already titled Way Back Into Love based on her favourite spiritual book - "an orgasm set to a Ghandi sound". And there's also a nice twist at the concert that follows in Madison Square Garden.

The relationship between the two leads develops nicely as the film progresses - there was only one thing that worried me here: although Grant still looks younger than his 46 years, I still think the gap between him and Barrymore - 32 this week - is perhaps a little too big. This might prove a problem for Grant as he gets even older and does start to age, as his leading girls will also have to age with him - or he could turn into a bit of a dirty old man.

I have heard that he had to be persuaded to take this part anyway because it was more of the same', and that he is looking at directing, so perhaps that could be the answer. If it is, it will be a shame because he is such a good actor - and his comedy work in this film is superb - far better than Bill Nighy's splendid send-up of The Troggs in Love Actually.

Grant even had voice training and piano classes and his performance on the two main songs is excellent - he could even have a surprise hit on his hands if the ballad Don't Write Me Off is released.

There are some good supporting performances, the best coming from Kristen Johnston (3rd Rock from The Sun) in an over-the-top performance as Alex's greatest fan from his PoP! days who just happens to be Sophie's sister Rhonda. And Haley Bennett, the beautiful, young teen-something in her first film, while a little wooden at times, does enough to spoof the pampered pop diva, and even comes up with her own comic lines: "I want to show you the roof - it's upstairs" to make her sound stupid enough to be real.

There's not a wrong note in this film if all you want is good fun, some surprisingly good tunes, and to walk out of the cinema with a smile on your face. And, like so many other Hugh Grant comedies, I bet you'll want to see it again and again over the coming years.