Television: Charming British film hits high notes

AWESOME FOURSOME: Reggie Paget (Tom Courtenay, left), Jean Horton (Maggie Smith), Cissy Robson (Pauline Collins) and Wilf Bond (Billy Connolly), characters in the film Quartet. PHOTO/SUPPLIED A-201212HOSSPLQUARTET4

Christmas night, 8.30pm on Prime was the British film Quartet, which I had to settle in and watch for about the third time since it was released in 2012.

This is a great story about retired opera singers and it was acclaimed American actor Dustin Hoffman's directorial debut. There's even a tenuous Wanganui link: international voice specialist Paul Farrington who spoke at the New Zealand Opera School at Wanganui Collegiate School last year was hired to teach the actors how to sing. That included Maggie Smith, Billy Connolly and Tom Courtenay.

Quartet is set in Beecham House, a retirement home for former professional musicians. The characters are retired opera singers who had often sung together over the years and talk endlessly about their memories of performances that had either thrilled or rankled.

Because they were all elderly and still competitive, there is a fair bit of bickering in the ranks and personal jealousies that had burned for more than 40 years. We saw a few fiery spats, with some hilarious consequences.

All the performances are fabulous, particularly Pauline Collins as Cissy, who kept lapsing into senile moments where she insisted it was time for her to go home and asking who had taken her suitcase. It's a reminder that, while these momentary lapses are funny, they are also very real and tough for many sufferers and their families.

At the heart of the film is the threatened closure of the home for lack of money. The annual concert on Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi's birthday is the last bastion of hope for this gentle home.

The famous quartet from Verdi's Rigoletto for soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, and baritone was one of the pieces selected to close the gala concert. And that's where the peace of the retirement home is nearly disrupted forever.

With actors like Smith, Connolly, Courtenay and Collins on show, this was a viewing feast.

However, I do have one complaint - and that's the ending.

The close of the film should have been the great four singing the Rigoletto quartet and, according to Paul Farrington, they had been coached to sing it.

But the end came with the expected gala performance and a recording of the Rigoletto quartet played as the credits rolled.

Because viewers by now would be very keen to see what these actors could do, their non-participation left some of us let down and stricken with disappointment.