Allelujah, review

A moving love letter to the NHS set in a world of death and incontinence.

Allelujah: Actor Bally Gill talks about new film role as NHS doctor

Bally Gill says his parents wanted him to become a doctor. He chose acting, but now he's playing an NHS medic in his first film role.

Allelujah review

Starry NHS hospital drama is less than scalpel-sharp.

Allelujah, Alan Bennett's 2018 play about the ailing fortunes of a geriatric hospital, gets a tonally bizarre big screen adaptation courtesy of Call The Midwife creator Heidi Thomas and director Richard Eyre. A slew of beloved British stage and screen stars - among them Judi Dench and Derek Jacobi - play the hospital's ailing patients, while Jennifer Saunders (as a ward nurse), Russell Tovey (as a government management consultant) and Bally Gill (as an immigrant doctor) attend to the plot, which revolves around the cash-strapped hospital's viability. Tovey gets a couple of good scenes, but a last-minute swerve into The Good Nurse territory doesn't come off at all.

Allelujah review

Overall, Allelujah is an intriguing production. It has a lot of things it wants to say, but its commitment to a shock-value plot twist blunts its ability to say those things and causes it to largely squander its runtime, making for an experience that feels inconsistent and compromised, despite its best efforts