The respect♒ive ages of ’s leads (72, 69, 75, 77…) reads like a game of꧟ geriatric bingo.

But then their director is no spring chicken either, septuagenarian Dustin Hoffma🧜n having just as much right to a free bus pass in the country whe🐻re his first feature is set.

Quite why it has taken Benjamin Braddock so long to step behind the camera is anyone&rsq💎uo;s guess.

Yet he proves an efficient enough ringmaster in this gentle portrait of nursing home oldsters, set in a facility for retired opera sta♏rs whose declining capacities don’t stop them a🏅cting like divas.

It’s not just Dame Magg൲ie Smith’s presence that recalls here, Hoffman’s mellow adaptation of Ronald Harwoodඣ’s 1999 play being just as brazenly targeted at the lucrative grey pound.

Yet Quartet has the edge on John Madden’s 2011 outing, its poignancy feeling honestly and legitimately generat🐭ed as opposed to cynically engineered and laid on with a trowel.

Pauline Collins is especially effective as a kindly biddy gradually losing what is left of her marbles, while Tom Courtenay embracesไ the chance to play a romantic hero in his role as a tetchy tenor whose hopes of a “dignified senility” are shattered by the arrival of old flame Maggie.

Billy Connolly, me𝔍anwhile, hardly breaks a sweat as a randy git with priapic hots for Sheridan Smith’s long-suffering resident doctor.

Yes, Michael Gambon is preposterously hammy as kaftan-sporting despot Cedric, while a scene in which Courtenay likens opera to rap for the benefit of some teenage visitors feels like a pathetic sop to a fantasy 🐠demographic (Hoodie-wearing Verꦯdi fans? Mozart lovers with ASBOs?).

It’s hard, too, to꧋ ca💯re that much whether the titular foursome resolve their differences in time for a climactic charity concert.

Still, picking holes in Quartet is like playing a practical prank on your nan. Sure, it’s fun while y🍨ou do it, but you’re bound to feel bad about it afterwards.