Measured rather than playing to the gallery, The Choral is Brassed Off in a minor key – an elegant, Yorkshire-set exploration of music as a spiritual morale-boost in the darkest times. With Ralph Fiennes gravely essaying the controversial choirmaster at its heart, it does a lovely job of swerving the obvious notes but misplaces its stirring crescendo.
In fairness, the setting isn’t a joyous one. We’re in the fictional mill town of Ramsden in 1916, a Yorkshire community rocked by steady losses on the Western Front. Word from France comes in the form of death notices delivered by postie Lofty (Oliver Briscombe) to bereft mothers. The town is divided between those eager to do their bit and those who fear that they or their young loved-ones will soon be called on to die in the trenches.
The local choral society is busy trying to lift the town’s spirits with a production of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. Except local patron and mill owner Alderman Duxbury (Roger Allam) is stuck trying to replace the departing choirmaster who’s just joined up. And when everyone twigs than Bach was, in fact, a Hun, the question becomes moot. It won’t do to be getting cosy with German culture in a time of war – although, as their new musical director Dr Henry Guthrie (Fiennes) points out, that would rule out Haydn, Beethoven and most of the other options too. Guthrie’s own German past soon marks his card too, although he claws back some patriotic points by suggesting a modernised version of Elgar’s ‘The Dream of Gerontius’ as an alternative.
A film about how art must evolve to speak to its times, it has a message for ours
Written by Alan Bennett, who reunites with Lady in the Van and The Madness of King George director Nicholas Hytner, The Choral cocks a wry eyebrow at this kind of basic xenophobia while showing a clear understanding of why it exists. This is a film about how art must evolve to speak to its times and the pair clearly have a message for ours. There’s plenty of Bennett’s sly wit here, too. ‘There are atheists now,’ chunters Mark Addy’s chorister. ‘There’s one in Bradford’.
It’s lit ethereally by cinematography Mike Eley, who brings a sense of drama to the rehearsals via some nifty crane shots. But The Choral suffers for having its biggest stakes off-screen. The bait-and-switch opening shot of men abreast emerging through the mist nods to events at the front, but there’s not a lot of tension in the race to get the Elgar up to scratch.
Fiennes is his usual immaculate self, with Alun Armstrong, Allam and Addy all born to play grumbling amateur tenors. The Selfish Giant’s Shaun Thomas, a rakish, tactless lad-about-town and Amara Okereke’s angelic-voiced Salvation Army volunteer are standouts. But best of all is Simon Russell Beale who make a memorable cameo as Elgar. He plays the great British composer as a stick-in-the-mud windbag whose vanity has trumped his artistic instincts. Maybe, you’re left wondering, they should have stuck with Bach after all.
In UK and Ireland cinemas now.