Young@Heart, a senior-citizen chorus, has delighted audiences worldwide with their covers of songs by everyone from The Clash to Coldplay.

Fox Searchlight / brandy eve allen

They do punk.

They do classic rock.

They do a wailing R&B.

They do covers of songs by the likes of Outkast, Jimi Hendrix, The Clash, James Brown, The Talking Heads, The Ramones, Bob Dylan, Coldplay, The Rolling Stones.

They are way cool.

They are the way-coolest septuagenarians and octogenarians you are ever likely to meet.

They have traveled the world, entertaining audiences that range from the crowned heads of Europe to prisoners in the local lockup.

They are having the time of their lives as The Young@Heart Chorus, a group of singing oldsters from Northampton, Mass., who have captivated the world’s stages with their unexpectedly unique take on contemporary music.

British documentary filmmaker Stephen Walker has captured their magic, their love of song and their heartaches in his affectionate film Young@Heart.

During a London concert, Walker was struck by the group’s originality that gives fresh interpretations of familiar songs and followed them back to America where he spent seven weeks, beginning in March 2006, as they learned several songs for a new act under the tutelage of music director Bob Cilman. “It was like I had found 24 new grandparents … but unlike any others,” Walker tells us in his matter-of-fact narration which would be equally at home in a documentary about tracking the wild beasts of Africa.

Lined up on stage at the start of Young@Heart, the white-haired assemblage, some balancing with the help of canes, looks as though they’re about to sing maybe a hymn or something mellow from the Stephen Foster songbook. But then 92-year-old Eileen Hall, the oldest member of the group, steps forward for a very personal, very funny solo rendition of The Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go?,” the slightly sexy lyrics getting a fresh boost by virtue of the fact that they’re springing from the lips of a woman who looks as though she should instead be baking a batch of cookies for the great-grandchildren.

Although most members of the group prefer classical music, opera or Broadway show tunes, they’re a game bunch as evidenced by their determination to get the rattling tune “Schizophrenia” by Sonic Youth just right. It is a complex piece that at first finds some of them not in tune with the music. But that’s nothing compared to Allen Toussaint’s “Yes We Can Can,” which they have trouble memorizing because of tricky lyrics that repeat the word “can” 71 times in various combinations. As one man in the group explains, “I’m trying to expand my horizons.”

Cilman, with a shock of wiry hair, has the patience of a saint as he tries to pull his singers together on a song. Yet he can be a demanding authority figure who is tough on them when necessary.

However, it’s the singers themselves, seen in rehearsal or in often funny asides at home, who pull us into Young@Heart and make it so vital and alive. Wisely, Walker has focused on only a handful of them — 24 would be too unwieldy — spotlighting their particular idiosyncrasies, their quotable quips and their health problems to give us vibrant portraits of each.

Two of them — Bob Salvani and Fred Knittle — return to the group following long illnesses and are greeted with open arms. But Salvani suffers a relapse that makes his performance at the new show they’ve been working on doubtful. In fact, there are two deaths that occur in one fateful week just before the big show, which brought gasps to the film’s preview audience. These moments are handled touchingly, but with simplicity and grace. The deaths put a damper on things momentarily, but they do not pull the film down into pathos. In the end the message is clear: like life itself, the show must and does go on.

Some of the film’s funniest moments revolve around Lenny Fontaine, who regularly drives Hall and Joe Benoit to gigs because he’s the only one of the three still allowed to drive. Yet nearly every trip is an event that tests the limits of the Massachusetts driving regulations.

And then there’s the film’s running gag in which Stan Goldman repeatedly tries, and fails, to wrap his mouth around the two lines he has to sing in James Brown’s “I Got You (I Feel Good).”

Young@Heart even has three spiffy music video-style production numbers, including one set in a bowling alley in which the enormous Knittle, who has congestive heart failure and travels with a breathing machine, dons a white suit to sing the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive.” Another has several singers in a hospital setting insistently singing The Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated.”

Believe me, that’s the last thing you’ll want while watching this lively, funny, touching film.

*****Young@Heart

Starring: Bob Cilman, Eileen Hall, Joe Benoit, Fred Knittle, Dora Morrow, Bob Salvani, Len Fontaine, Stan Goldman.

Rated: PG, contains adult themes.

mjanuson@projo.com