Peter Viney's Blog

Written by Alan Bennett
Directed by Nicholas Hytner

Sony Classic Films / BBC

DVD 2026

CAST
Ralph Fiennes – Dr Henry Guthrie
Robert Emms- Robert Horner, pianist
Roger Allam- Alderman Bernard Duxbury, mill owner
Alun Armstrong- Herbert Trickett,
Mark Addy – Joe Fytton, photographer
Amara Okereke – Mary Lockwood, lead soprano
Taylor Uttley- Ellis
Oliver Briscombe – Lofty
Emily Fairn – Bella
Jacob Dudman – Clyde, lead tenor
Simon Russell-Beale- Sir Edward Elgar
Ron Cook – Reverend Woodhead
Eunice Roberts- Mrs Duxbury
Lyndsey Marshall- Mrs Bishop
Oliver Chris- Major Dobson
Christopher Dean – Podge
Angela Curran – Mrs Pemberton
Carolyn Pickles – Miss Muschamp
+
Tia Jordan Radix-Callixte- singinging voice of Mary
Hugo Brady- singing voice of Clyde

The writer and director had sold it to me before I even saw the “Best of British” cast list. Then Nicholas Hytner, as ex-director of the National Theatre and Director / co-owner of the Bridge Theatre has all the connections. Therefore you get Simon Russell-Beale in a short but memorable sequence as Sir Edward Elgar. Plus you get Oliver Chris turning up for a two minute cameo as Major Dobson at the recruitment tribunal. As one train pulled out, I sensed it was filled with actors we’d seen on stage, uncredited. You may not have heard of Amara Okereke (yet) as Mary, the Salvation Army singer who becomes lead soprano. We have. She was Ariel in The Tempest to Kenneth Branagh’s Prospero at the Royal Shakespeare Company this year. Before that we saw her in Oklahoma.

It’s a gentle, funny and poignant British movie of the sort that will go on and on at Netflix or Prime for years, let alone DVD. We paid £9.99 last week. Amazon has it for £6.99 this week. A bargain. You’ll watch it more than once over two or three years.

It’s set in 1916, in a fictional Yorkshire town, Ramsden. It was filmed in Saltaire. The street scenery and surrounding countryside are co-stars. It’s right at the point when conscription was introduced for men 18-40 in the Great War, or World War One as we call it with hindsight.

There is a twist in the very opening shots. The action is interspersed with Joe (Mark Addy) doing the official portraits in uniform. We have a few of those. I’d argue that on the click! I would have gone to B&W or sepia, not stayed in colour.

I’ll try not to totally plot spoil. It’s at an extreme end of “What do you know? We got a show!’ as a genre. That’s the old theatre or show under threat, rescued by a cheerful amateur production. So Crazy For You or The Young Ones. Except this show is the local choral society’s annual production of an oratorio.

There are groups. We open with the young lads, the cheeky lad Ellis, and Lofty, whose job is delivering telegrams, mainly from”The King” informing the recipient that a son or husband has been killed in action. The lads are 18, and on the cusp of being conscripted.

The Choral, a society financed by the mill owner, Alderman Duxbury (Roger Allam) is also hit by people joining up, and at the start it’s their choirmaster and pianist. They’re desperately short of male singers too, and decide to stretch their social base (it’s considered snobby locally) to bring in young lads like Ellis (Taylor Uttley) and Lofty (Oliver Briscombe), and girls like Bella (Emily Fairn) and Mary (Amara Okereke ).

Bella’s boyfriend, Clyde, is missing in action. Mary sings for the Sally Army.

They seek a new choirmaster. The trouble is that Henry Guthrie (Ralph Fiennes), their eventual choice, has spent years in Germany. Not only that, he’s homosexual, and daily examines the newspapers for news of his German lover’s ship. He brings a pianist, Robert (Robert Emms) with him, a man who has a crush on him. This is 1916 Yorkshire remember.

Then Bach’s St Matthew Passion is German. After working out that alternative composers are German too, they decide on Elgar’s the Dream of Gerontius. They’re worried that Elgar was Catholic, and the vicar (Ron Cook) doesn’t like the inclusion of Purgatory in the storyline. The C of E doesn’t have Purgatory.

There are multiple threads. First the various connections of the younger ones. Bella and Ellis start getting together, and shock / horror, the missing Clyde (Jacob Tudman) turns up, with one arm missing.

He is also an incredible tenor, and poor Alderman Duxbury is finding the score too difficult for his abilities as lead tenor.

There’s some asides on sexual matters in the era. Mrs Bishop is the local tart with a heart, regularly seen by Duxbury and Joe, the photographer. No plot spoilers otherwise, but it seems genuine. The lads all seek experience in one way or another before leaving.

Then Robert the pianist is looking calf-eyed at Guthrie. He is about to be conscripted and decides to be a conscientious objector. They had a really bad time. The tribunal is fiercely patriotic and unforgiving. Three of the lads are conscripted, though the fourth, Podge is excepted.

They decide to amend the production, put Clyde in uniform, and use convalescing wounded soldiers, and dress Mary as a nurse. The lads also dress up as the horribly maimed. I don’t think they would have done that in 1916, or if they did, the lads would have done a runner, but it propels the story.

Elgar (Simon Russell-Beale) turns up before the show. Costume is opera, not oratorio! He forbids it. Even though Mary tries to persuade him. He is much taken with her.

How will they get around it? They find a way and … er, what d’ya know, we got a show?

It ends with the lads conscripted, off on a train. There used to be bands to see them off in 1914. No longer.

LINKS

ALAN BENNETT
People, by Alan Bennett, National Theatre on tour 2013
Forty Years On, by Alan Bennett, Chichester 2017

NICHOLAS HYTNER
Richard II, Bridge Theatre 2025
John Gabriel Borkman by Ibsen, Bridge 2022
The Southbury Child, by Stephen Beresford, Chichester 2022
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Bridge Theatre, 2019
Young Marx, by Richard Bean & Clive Coleman, Bridge Theatre 2017
Othello, National Theatre, 2013
Timon of Athens, National Theatre, 2012
Hamlet, National Theatre, 2010
People, by Alan Bennett, National Theatre on tour 2013
London Assurance, NT 2010

RALPH FIENNES
Small Hotel, Bath 2025
As You Like It, Bath 2025 (DIRECTOR)
Grace Pervades, Bath 2025 (Henry Irving)
Conclave (film)
Richard III, Almedia 2016 (Richard III)
Man & Superman, National Theatre
The Grand Budapest Hotel (film)
Cemetery Junction (film)
Hail Caesar! (film)
The King’s Man (film)
The Dig (film)

MARK ADDY
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Chichester 2025
The Salisbury Poisonings (TV series) 2020
The Hypocrite, RSC 2017
London Assurance, NT 2010

ROGER ALLUM
Uncle Vanya (filmed) 2021
A Number, by Caryl Churchill, Bridge Theatre 2020
The Book Thief(film) Narrator / Death

AMARA OTOREKE
The Tempest, RSC 2026
Oklahoma! Chichester 2019

SIMON RUSSELL-BEALE
John Gabriel Borkman by Ibsen, Bridge 2022
The Tempest, RSC 2016 (Prospero)
King Lear, National Theatre, 2014 (Lear)
The Hot House, by Harold Pinter, Trafalgar Studios, 2013
Privates on Parade, by Peter Nichols, Michael Grandage Season, 2012
Timon of Athens, National Theatre, 2012 (Timon)
London Assurance, NT 2010

PLAYS BY OLIVER CHRIS
Jack Absolute Flies Again, NT 2022 (Co-writer)
Ralegh – The Treason Trial, Winchester Great Hall, 2018
OLIVER CHRIS AS ACTOR:
The Deep Blue Sea, Bath 2024
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Bridge Theatre 2019 (Oberon / Theseus)
Young Marx, by Richard Bean & Clive Coleman, Bridge Theatre 2017
King Charles III, TV version, 2017
Twelfth Night, National Theatre 2017
Fracked! Or Please Don’t Use The F-Word, Chichester 2016
King Charles III, 2014
One Man Two Guv’nors 2013