The Choral is a 2025 British historical comedy-drama film, directed by Nicholas Hytner from an original script written by Alan Bennett. It had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, and was released in the UK on 7 November.

The film is set in the fictional Yorkshire town of Ramsden in 1916, as the terrors of the Great War ravage Europe. Conscription came into force at the beginning of that year, and those who did not volunteer for active service a year or so earlier are now being drafted, whether they like it or not.

Consequently the local choral society, which has already committed to its next performance, does not have the necessary manpower to deliver. To begin with they are losing their choirmaster and so the committee must find a replacement, which they debate in a scene straight out of JB Priestley’s When We are Married. They then appoint, against their better judgement, Dr Henry Guthrie (Ralph Fiennes) who unfortunately has just returned from a musical position in his beloved Germany and may have other skeletons in his closet to boot! (ee bah gum). Guthrie reluctantly agrees to accept the position, provided he has total artistic freedom, and suggests that instead of the planned work by a German composer, they produce Edward Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius. Guthrie then sets about touring the local pubs to identify any young men who can sing in order to recruit them into the choir and get them knocked into some sort of shape prior to the performance. And finally, on the afternoon of the show, who should pop by but Elgar himself (Simon Russell Beale) to throw a late spanner in the works.

So, a good old British feelgood film, in the tradition of, say, Brassed Off? Except this is no Brassed Off. To begin with, the plot is very clunky with lots of one-off events introduced just to move the story forward. Secondly the characterisation is woefully thin – the only vaguely rounded character is Dr Guthrie, and he is very much dependent on the acting of Fiennes rather than the quality of the writing. As for the rest of the cast, it reads like a Who’s Who of British character actors (Roger Allam, Alun Armstrong, Mark Addy, Ron Cook and so on), all of whom are left to flounder with poorly defined caricatures. As for the portrayal of Elgar, Beale hams it up preposterously, but to be fair he has nothing to work with – I am sure if Elgar were alive today, writs would be issued.

Finally the story itself bites off far more than it can chew, and so is utterly lacking in focus. We deal with: the returning wounded, the faithless girls back home, the white-feather brigade, the need to lose one’s virginity prior to going to fight, the small-town hypocrisy surrounding the local prostitute, even the difficulty of masturbating when you have had your right arm shot off (I kid thee not). There are more serious matters of anti-German sentiment and latent homophobia, although interestingly not racism: the fact that the female star of the choir is a young black girl, Mary (Amara Okereke) passes without comment.

I know that traditionally with a stage play the buck stops with the playwright and with a film it stops with the Director, but when Bennett is the writer and Hytner the Director, we are in unusual territory. And by and large my criticisms are with the writing, so for me the book (sic) must stop with Bennett.

The cinematography is nice, as is Elgar’s music, and it is very pleasant to look at the local scenery of Saltaire and Keighley station, both of which are very close to where I live. So my main criticism of Hytner is that he should have told Bennett that the screenplay needed to be considerably tighter and more focused, the characters needed to be properly defined, and the plot needed to be much smoother.

So why three stars and not two? Because this is a film that a lot of people will enjoy without worrying about the bits that annoy me. If it is on the TV on a wet Sunday afternoon and you have nothing much else to do, then it is a not too unpleasant way of whiling away a couple of hours. Just keep your artistic expectations low, and you should be all right.