Made me laugh for all the wrong reasons: Allelujah reviewed

Allelujah, based on the stage play by Alan Bennett, is set in a geriatric ward in a Yorkshire hospital and has a stellar cast: Jennifer Saunders, Derek Jacobi, David Bradley, Julia McKenzie, Lorraine Ashbourne, Dame Judi Dench – but not Dame Maggie Smith, inexplicably. Maybe she missed the call. It’s directed by Richard Eyre and produced by Nicholas Hytner, among others, so it has all the credentials you could wish for and yet, and yet, and yet. It’s weirdly lifeless and perfunctory and introduces a tonal shift at the end that belongs to a different film. That part did make me laugh but for all the wrong reasons, alas.

The hospital is the Bethlehem, known as ‘the Beth’, which is old and Victorian. It is beloved by the local community but threatened with closure by Whitehall bean-counters. It has wards named after famous singers. Mostly, we are on the Shirley Bassey ward although there is a Dusty Springfield ward too.