There have been many perspectives on World War I and inspect on Britain, on young men and conscription. This is definitely to the fore in this film. But, the focus is on music, the Choral.
This is the fictional town of Ramsden, like many Yorkshire towns, recreated in quite some detail, the vast mills which dominate everyone, the streets, the lanes, the houses, the pubs, the Grand Hotel, the railway station and the surrounding hilly countryside. The film immerses us in Ramsden.
And there is a wide range of characters, so many that, at times, the audience might lose touch with who’s who, suggestions of character but leaving it to the audience to fill in. There is the postman with sad letters knocking on doors and the grieving mothers and wives, and his cheeky young offsider who sees grief as an opportunity for making come kind of sexual advance. There is Mary, the young Salvation Army singer, member of a black family. There is Bella, her boyfriend at war, missing, her taking up with someone else. There are the rather haughty ladies, the contraltos of the choir, snobbish. There is Mrs Bishop whose ordinary home serves as a brothel.
But, the focus is on the Choral, the committee led by the mill owner, aided by the photographers and the vicar – characteristically good performances from veterans Roger Allam, Alun Armstrong, Mark Addy, Ron Cook. The choir master enlists.
The proposal for the new choirmaster is Mr Guthrie, talented conductor, living a lot of time in Germany, under suspicion for this, and the quiet indication that he might be homosexual. He is played by Ralph Fiennes, another excellent performance.
So a great deal of the film focuses on the motley choir, the recruiting of any of the young men around the town willing to sing, the auditions, serious and comic, music from popular songs to Gilbert and Sullivan, arias. The intention is Bach’s St Matthew’s Passion but the suggestion by Mr Guthrie of Edward Elgar’s oratorio, The Dream of Gerontius, from the poem by Cardinal Newman (and some anti-Catholic bigotry expressed).
A lot of rehearsal sequences, the return of Bella’s boyfriend, Clyde, Jacob Dudman, despite an arm lost, disappointment with Bella, Mr Guthrie persuading him that his sadness can be the basis for developing his gift and his being offered the role of Gerontius. Some fine scenes where Mr Guthrie talks intensely with Clyde about his fate, and a speech by Clyde indicating that purgatory exists, and that it was there in the no man’s land between the trenches.
An episode with Elgar himself, a jaunty Simon Russell Beale, agreeable, then taken aback by the plans for the interpretation of his oratorio.
Perhaps it’s the old story of putting on a show, but, ultimately, it is a moving success. But, then more reality, conscription, young men reaching that age, and the farewell at Ramsden Station.
It would be hoped that the film would encourage those who like to sing to join a choir – but, there is something strange about seeing the jaunty young men of that period singing serious music, not dreaming that rock and roll and heavy metal were to come and take over. The screenplay was written by celebrated playwright, Alan Bennett, in his late 80s.
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