A Swarm in May

The Children's Film Unit's third feature, this is surprisingly adult in its nostalgia for childhood (pre 'Grange Hill', prime Billy Bunter). Returning to Cathedral Choral School from his broken home, an unpopular 'wet' (Hicks) learns to his greater misery that he is to be 'bee-keeper', a symbolic role merely requiring plenty of singing. Mix the occasional melodious 'Nunc Dimittis' with some investigation into the mystery of the first bee-keeper's secrets, and you come up with a moral that tradition is a Good Thing when you know what it's all about. Finbow avoids the amateur raucousness of the earlier Captain Stirrick; and his youthful production team has evoked a fine sense of the close-up familiarity of boys (strictly no girls), summer warmth, and the lingering flow of time.