"Strange Fruit" had everything that makes a legendary rockband: money, fame, success, groupies, a singer who died of drugs, and even a divine ending, when lightning struck the stage during an open-air concert. Twenty years later, all of the band members are minding their own businesses, the idea of a band reunion is brought up by, well, public request. Tony Costello (Stephen Rea), the former keyboard player, sets out only to find his former friends working as a roofer, a gardener and a hotel clerk. They all became rather everyday people, married or still single, they definitely are not wild and crazy anymore. But with the help of former manager Karen Knowles (Juliet Aubrey), who is still dreaming of Brian Lovell (Bruce Robinson), the apparently deceased lead guitarist, they all, old, fat and wrinkled as they are, try to catch that spirit again.

Set in the 1880s, the story of how, during a creative dry spell, the partnership of the legendary musical/theatrical writers Gilbert and Sullivan almost dissolves, before they turn it all around and write the Mikado.