Lovers of old-school quality, rejoice - director Nicholas Hytner, writer Alan Bennett, and leading man Ralph Fiennes have just the film for you. It will leave you with a song in your heart and, probably, a lump in your throat.
Watch: Director Nicholas Hytner tells RTÉ Entertainment about bringing The Choral to big-screen life
This quintessentially British comedy-drama is set in the fictional Yorkshire town of Ramsden in 1916. Conscription has begun, and the glue that keeps the community together, the Ramsden Choral Society, is in danger of losing its hold. When the lads turn 18, they'll be sent to the front. Others have already volunteered, including Ramsden's chorus master. Yes, the fantasy that they'll be "home by Christmas" is still being peddled from the pulpits and in the pubs, but in the meantime, drastic action is needed to save the Ramsden Choral Society. There's an upcoming performance, after all.
Enter Dr Guthrie (Fiennes), a once-celebrated musical director who is now turning a shilling in a local hotel, having been effectively cancelled for working in Germany. Guthrie quotes Goethe and takes no prisoners, but he can get a tune out of anyone - as his new employers are about to discover.
BAFTA, Olivier, and Tony Award winner Nicholas Hytner previously brought Alan Bennett's plays The Madness of King George, The History Boys, and The Lady in the Van to the big screen. The Choral, however, is a departure because it didn't begin life on the stage. Breathe easy: quality control remains stringent. Although Bennett is now 91, his mastery of character and gift for a zinger are as finely tuned as ever. Everyone gets their moment (or three) in The Choral, and the cast is a beguiling mix of veterans and new faces. In his 'day job' as a theatre director, Hytner had already worked with Fiennes, Roger Allam, Mark Addy, Lyndsey Marshall, and Simon Russell Beale. Here, they are joined by a younger generation that you'll be keen to keep track of in much the same way in the years ahead.
The Choral deftly changes gears between humour and poignancy: a laugh-out-loud first half becomes a profound second. The singers and Dr Guthrie lose themselves in the moment while reality waits in the wings. With a soundtrack by five-time Oscar nominee George Fenton (Gandhi, Cry Freedom, Dangerous Liaisons, TV's Planet Earth), the music in this gorgeous-looking film is beautiful - uplifting and elegiac all at once - and deserves to become a familiar friend.
Could more have been made of the final performance? That's really the only question about the work on screen. The Choral is a crowd-pleaser, but there's bite behind the bonhomie too. Its closing line, delivered on a train station platform, is the most powerful in the whole film, an observation from way back that's sadly still as relevant in the here and now.
