Thanks to Fr. Maes at the Shrine for the heads up! (And, I love the headline, in the 7/2 Wall Street Journal!)
Making a High School Musical When It Isn’t
‘The Choir,” which begins Wednesday on BBC America (10-11 p.m. ET) follows British choirmaster Gareth Malone as he sets out to bring choral singing, and classical music, back to U.K. schools that long ago gave up on them. The result is what might be called a nonfiction mash-up of TV’s “Glee” and the 1967 movie “To Sir, with Love.”
Like the Fox television series, “The Choir” revolves around young people who are drawn, or dragged, to competitive singing and who learn about much more than music along the way. Many of these students come from less-than-privileged backgrounds in forlorn-looking towns on the outskirts of London. That gives the series an echo of the above-mentioned ’60s movie about an idealistic teacher in London’s grim East End whose most important lessons for his students are about self-esteem.