How enthusiastic are moviegoers about Bette Midler’s brand of loud-mouthed show-boating these days? And is the life of ’60s soap novelist Jacqueline Susann interesting enough to merit an all-singing all-dancing biopic? Despite Valley Of The Dolls – – her salacious exposé of Hollywood depravity – – being at the forefront of a shift in publishing from stuffy literature to crass populism, she’s hardly one of the most renowned of figures.

Isn’t She Great is at its most amusing when showing the clash between showbiz trashiness and the publishing establishment’s WASPish conventionality, as represented by the prissy Michael (Hyde Pierce, reprising his Frasier role to good effect).

Conversely, the film falters when skirting round Susann’s fight with cancer and relationship with her autistic son. There are some great lines amid the duff stuff but this remains a profoundly uneven affair.