Director: Nicholas Hytner

Stars: Ralph Fiennes, Roger Allam, Emily Fairn, Mark Addy, Alun Armstrong, Oliver Bruscombe, Taylor Utley, Simon Russell Beale

This broad but appealing World War I-set drama marks the fourth collaboration between writer Alan Bennett and director Nicholas Hynter. It is 1916 and the local choral society in Ramsden, Yorkshire, led by mill owner Alderman Duxley (Allam) are desperate to recruit more male singers, which is difficult as most males of serving age having been called up to fight. He pressgangs two seventeen-year-olds Lofty (Briscombe) a postman charged with delivering letters of condolences to war widows, and the skirt-chasing (Uttley). Desperate for someone to lead the choir the committee reluctantly settle on Dr Henry Guthrie (Feinnes), a conductor trailed by controversy having spent a lot of time in Germany, and who remains an unashamed Germanophile. Looking for something suitably patriotic, they land on Elgar. The composer coincidentally who is due to visit the night of their performance. Bennett’s script is typically wry and irreverent if a little too dependent on provincial place names as a punchline. Fiennes brings an admirable depth to Guthrie, while the script’s trumpeting of the redemptive power of art is persuasive and the anti-war message feels timely and potent.

David Willoughby

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