Men Who Sing

Dylan Williams' documentary about a Welsh male choir provides an unexpected depth of appeal.

This is a film which offers the viewer much more than you might expect. Given the title, it is no surprise that this is a documentary about a Welsh male voice choir. Slightly more unexpected is the fact that quite a lot of it is spoken in Welsh with subtitles, something that adds to the atmosphere. What is par for the course, but not without its own familiar appeal, is the way in which the long-established Trelawnyd choir prepares for the first time in fifteen years to compete in an international choral event. That event was the Bangor Festival in Northern Ireland and the actual competition forms the climax to the film.

Many audiences would enjoy Men Who Sing even if there was nothing to it beyond that, but this film by Dylan Williams is much richer by far. For one thing Williams has a personal connection to the material. The setting is Rhyl in North East Wales, home to the director’s father who has sung in the choir for sixty-five years and is a widower who has just decided to leave the old family home while still capable of managing the move (he is just short of ninety years old). This proposal, a reminder that his father’s age may mean that he has a limited time to live, brings Dylan back from Sweden where he has been living for the last twenty years (his departure from Rhyl had occurred even earlier when as a youth he had regarded it as a dead end and had set out to see the world).

Men Who Sing rewardingly starts out with their reunion and then finds Dylan staying on to make this film. The trigger for that was his appreciation of the choir and of its ability to provide a focus and purpose in life for the old men who make up the greater part of its membership (65 in all). That so many may soon die underlines the fact that the choir has to struggle to find new and younger members: this in itself adds an extra layer to the film because it portrays a traditional body at risk of being consigned to history. Their singing is itself part of Welsh culture and, if certain performances by them have piano accompaniment, the very best impression is made by those which are unaccompanied.

Without falling into sentimentality, the film is a work in which the age of the choir members featured results in a sense of death hovering. But, simultaneously, there is a positivity in their outlook, not least on the part of Dylan’s father. If the men impress as individuals, the shared comradeship of belonging to the choir comes across admirably, an element that we can appreciate all the more at the present time as we look back on Covid restrictions that have interrupted communal experiences of this kind.

It is not difficult to point to certain aspects that are ignored in Men Who Sing: Dylan’s father may be a widower but, despite the number of other men in the choir, we see no wives; we do learn of one newcomer to the choir after a recruiting campaign has been undertaken, but otherwise the outcome is left vague. Similarly, even when dealing with the Williams family there is a failure to flesh things out: only a limited explanation is offered as to why Dylan had become quite so estranged, there are no details about his personal life and a sister is only mentioned once in passing. But the film makes a strong enough impression to make these omissions unimportant. Furthermore, if it might be thought that a documentary about a male choir would have no place for a leading female presence, that proves not to be the case. In Ann, the totally committed no-nonsense choir mistress, the film has its own heroine. Like the men we meet here, Ann’s personality is part and parcel of a documentary that has real warmth in an admirably unselfconscious way. Sensibly not overextended (it lasts only 78 minutes), Men Who Sing is an engaging piece which has so much to say about old age that its celebration of Trelawnyd male voice choir is only one thread among many. What a nice film this is.

MANSEL STIMPSON

Featuring  Côr Meibion Trelawnyd including Ednyfed Williams, Ann Atkinson and Merf Richards and with Dylan Williams.

Dir Dylan Williams, Pro Llion Iwan, Dylan Williams and Euros Wynn, Ph Ed Edwards and others, Ed Ben Stark, Magnus Svensson and Dylan Williams, Music Scott Shields.

Cwmni Da/A Backflip Media production/S4C/SVT-Dartmouth Films.
78 mins. UK/Sweden. 2021. Rel: 5 November 2021. Cert. 12A .