Valley of Song

Yesterday I went to see a film that was made in 1953 but which I felt gave the impression that it was set much earlier - about 1927. It was about a small town in the South Wales valleys which had a choir that was about to embark, as they did every year, on a performance of "The Messiah". But the choirmaster had recently died,. However, conveniently, a former inhabitant of the town was retiring from London to become the insurance agent and who had had experience with conducting London choirs. Why not conduct ours? asked the local Minister of the chapel. He seemed reluctant until the Minister mentioned the words "The Messiah" when his eyes lit up: of course he would be thrilled to come to their aid. However, one of his first duties was to distribute solo parts to four members of the choir and he made a fatal error of not choosing Mrs Lloyd for the contralto soloist, choosing instead a Mrs Davies. Feelings were hurt, quarrels began, and eventually turmoil: the whole village separated into two tribes: either you were for the Lloyd's or the Davies's.
I remember not this film but the radio play on which it was based: "Choir Practice". I also recall it being described as "a storm in a Welsh teacup".
I enjoyed the film a lot: heaps of homely fun and some fine singing from the London Welsh choir (incidentally my wife's uncle was a member at that time). It was no masterpiece but as we all know, some masterpieces can be difficult to take, especially film masterpieces - I am thinking particularly of those from Sweden some fifty or so years ago. No, it was not a masterpiece; it had no depth, it was rather silly at times and it depicted the Welsh as comic people which, I suppose, could be regarded as "condescending". But I ignored all that deep thought and sat back and enjoyed it like one does a cream cake.
It brought to mind a matter which we had to solve when putting on a panto at the college I worked in. I always wrote the script and a chap called Dave produced it. We did "Cinderella" one year and "Jack and the beanstalk" and "Sleeping Beauty" and so on. And every year the boss's secretary played the female lead because she could act a bit, sing a bit and, most required quality of all, she was pretty. But prettiness fades with age. And now we were going to do "Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs". "Who'll play Snow White?" I asked Dave. He thought deeply about for it about two seconds and said "there's a girl in the new intake who'll be ideal." I said "What about the boss's sec.? She'll have to be told." "I'll tell her," he said. But I knew he wouldn't. He couldn't. No one could, it would be too unkind. So no one told her. But it must have been "in the air"; she must have realised herself that she was too old for the part. She came to us one day and said she'd like to play The Queen. "No, you can't do that, Snow White surely" we said. "I insist," she said.
Problem solved. No Lloyds versus Davies's. Peace. Panto on with six male members of staff on their knees singing "Hi, ho, hi, ho ....." Big success. OK, little success.