{"id":1022,"date":"2026-03-09T04:16:59","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T10:16:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lunenburgfilms.com\/wp\/?p=1022"},"modified":"2026-04-11T04:30:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T10:30:14","slug":"holy-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lunenburgfilms.com\/wp\/?p=1022","title":{"rendered":"The Choral"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Wednesday May 6 at 4:00 and 7:00pm<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"184\" height=\"274\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lunenburgfilms.com\/wp\/wp-content\/choral.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1030\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>A British historical drama set in 1916, during\u00a0World War I, in the fictional town of Ramsden,\u00a0Yorkshire. The film follows the members of the local choral society which recruits a disparate group of townspeople for a performance of\u00a0Edward Elgar&#8217;s\u00a0<em>The Dream of Gerontius<\/em>, a work chosen because it was not written by a German.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Director\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0405336\/?ref_=tt_ov_1_1\">Nicholas Hytner<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Writers\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0003141\/?ref_=tt_ov_2_1\">Alan Bennett<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0073571\/?ref_=tt_ov_2_2\">Stephen Beresford<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt31851518\/fullcredits\/?ref_=tt_ov_sm_3#amzn1.imdb.concept.name_credit_group.7caf7d16-5db9-4f4f-8864-d4c6e711c686\">Stars<\/a><ul><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm13890025\/?ref_=tt_ov_3_1\">Taylor Uttley<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm14981270\/?ref_=tt_ov_3_2\">Oliver Briscombe<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm11360809\/?ref_=tt_ov_3_3\">Amara Okereke<\/a><\/li><\/ul><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt31851518\/fullcredits\/?ref_=tt_ov_sm_3#amzn1.imdb.concept.name_credit_group.7caf7d16-5db9-4f4f-8864-d4c6e711c686\"><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/pro.imdb.com\/title\/tt31851518\/?rf=cons_tt_atf&amp;ref_=cons_tt_atf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Choral - Official Trailer - Only In Cinemas November 7\" width=\"450\" height=\"253\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EYMIhLwiHVs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2025\/film\/reviews\/the-choral-review-ralph-fiennes-1236556557\/\">REVIEW<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cGod Save the King\u201d has never been the loveliest or most melodic of national anthems, and its somewhat chiding, aggressive tenor is brought to the fore early in \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/the-choral\/\">The Choral<\/a>.\u201d Upon delivery of some good news from the front in the grim midst of the First World War, an English village choir\u2019s lusty, spontaneous rendition of the song disrupts their rather shabbier rehearsal of Edward Elgar\u2019s complex, haunting oratorio \u201cThe Dream of Gerontius,\u201d prompting refined choirmaster Dr. Henry Guthrie (<a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/ralph-fiennes\/\">Ralph Fiennes<\/a>) to roll his eyes to the back of his head. \u201cIf only you sang Elgar with the confidence you sing the national anthem,\u201d he mutters. Art counts for a lot more than patriotism to Guthrie, and the happy surprise of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/nicholas-hytner\/\">Nicholas Hytner<\/a>\u2018s film \u2014 despite its twee, veddy English trappings \u2014 is that it largely takes his side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Perhaps that\u2019s not such a surprise. \u201cThe Choral\u201d is, after all, the first original screenplay in over 40 years by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/alan-bennett\/\">Alan Bennett<\/a>, a 91-year-old national treasure whose place in the British cultural firmament has never been tidily defined: A queer, agnostic, working-class Northerner, he\u2019s a staunch royalist who declined a knighthood, and whose politics have traveled along a spectrum he once described as \u201cconservative socialism.\u201d Many of those contrasts and conflicts are present in \u201cThe Choral\u201d \u2014 some for better, some for worse, but quite interestingly in all cases \u2014 even if Hytner, the director who previously filmed Bennett\u2019s scripts for \u201cThe Madness of King George,\u201d \u201cThe History Boys\u201d and \u201cThe Lady in the Van,\u201d gives the overall package a deceptively buttery gloss of tea-and-crumpets nostalgia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wednesday May 6 at 4:00 and 7:00pm A British historical drama set in 1916, during\u00a0World War I, in the fictional town of Ramsden,\u00a0Yorkshire. The film follows the members of the local choral society which recruits a disparate group of townspeople for a performance of\u00a0Edward Elgar&#8217;s\u00a0The Dream of Gerontius, a work chosen because it was not [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunenburgfilms.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunenburgfilms.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunenburgfilms.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunenburgfilms.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunenburgfilms.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1022"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunenburgfilms.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1032,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunenburgfilms.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022\/revisions\/1032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunenburgfilms.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunenburgfilms.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunenburgfilms.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}