Playwright Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti is best known for her Susan Smith Blackburn prize-winning 2005 drama Behzti. Featuring scenes of rape and violence in a Sikh gurdwara, the ambitious state-of-the-nation work stirred huge controversy among religious communities when it premiered, and had its run at the Birmingham Rep cancelled following violent protests.
Bhatti has since gone on to create similarly confronting work, including her recent touring play about prison motherhood, Scenes from Lost Mothers, as well as penning a coercive control storyline for The Archers. But those theatregoers expecting a continuation of this challenging storytelling may be disappointed by her latest work, Choir. Set during rehearsal sessions for a community choir who are preparing for a potential big break on TV, the play is more comic than visceral; more sitcom than Sarah Kane.
The eight-person ensemble cast are tight-knit and lively, tackling musical numbers such as Queen’s Somebody to Love and the Eagles’ Hotel California with harmonic aplomb, while director Hannah Joss’s slick musical scene transitions add pace and rhythm to the script. But the characterisations are disappointingly clunky, giving us the likes of kooky pensioner Sheila, lonely divorcee Ken, diva-like former star Paul and troubled but promising upstart Freddie.
Group dynamics play out predictably in the first half, as newcomer Freddie steals the spotlight from usual soloist Paul, and the stress caused by the TV crew’s imminent arrival leads choir founder Morgan (an energetic and engaging Laura Checkley) to make a compromising decision.
Secrets abound and slapstick gags lead to panto laughs. Thankfully though, as the play’s final acts arrive, a series of emotional denouements elevate it. Danusia Samal as happy-go-lucky Anna delivers a beautifully muted monologue that reveals the sadness behind her plastered-on smile, while a standout scene between Keenan Munn-Francis’s shy Freddie and James Gillan’s acerbic Paul produces a moving rendition of Sinead O’Connor’s Nothing Compares 2 U.
Revelations come quickly and the show’s finale lands with a heartwarming flutter. It’s perhaps too little too late, but ultimately still a welcome foray into fresh, feelgood territory for Bhatti.