The Choir

The school next to Grenfell Tower asks Gareth Malone to help pupils create a concert to mark the reopening of their building. They find they have a unique and moving story to tell.

It is the semi-final of Gareth Malone's contest to find Britain's most entertaining, undiscovered amateur choir. The four groups Gareth has handpicked from across the country are being brought together for the first time at bootcamp, before they go head to head to stay in the contest. They face intensive mentoring from Gareth and some of the UK's top vocal and performance coaches as part of a challenge designed to target and overcome their musical weaknesses. Emotions and tensions run high as two choirs grapple with picking the perfect soloist, while another must tackle their lack of self-belief. It is a race against the clock to perfect their semi-final performances before the groups sing live in front of an invited audience and a jury of musical experts. The jury's votes decide which groups will go through to the grand final and which choir will leave the contest for good.

Gareth Malone's exciting new singing contest to find Britain's most entertaining, undiscovered, amateur choir continues. This week, Gareth is on home turf as he scours the south west of England for a third regional champion to put through to his nationwide contest. Pit stops include hay barns, harbours and a high tea, on an audition tour that features a Bristol sea shanty band, a cake-loving WI group, a Guernsey church choir and some tuneful young farmers from Devon. To top it all, Gareth umpires a Pitch Perfect-style song battle between Exeter University's two top a cappella acts. But who from among these hopefuls will Gareth select for the sing-off? Success at this sing-off will secure a place in the national stages of the competition, but also comes with a challenge - ahead of the national contest, the winning choir must work with Gareth to pull off a performance in their home town.

Gareth Malone launches his exciting singing contest to find Britain's most entertaining amateur choir. This week, Gareth is looking for a choir to represent Scotland and the north of England, in a tour that takes him from the rugged beauty of the Scottish Highlands to the rolling hills of the Peak District. From the hundreds who applied, the groups Gareth has chosen to audition include a cancer care choir from Manchester, a troupe of singing mums in Durham, a bluff bunch of Yorkshire pensioners and some soulful singers in Edinburgh. All are hoping to secure a place in a sing-off that could put them through to the national stages of the contest, but who will Gareth choose? And will his expert advice and tuition be enough to help them pull off a performance in their own home town, designed to get them match fit for the later stages of the competition?

It has been ten years since choirmaster Gareth Malone first set out on a mission to get Britain singing. Since then, he has inspired hundreds of people, creating 14 very different choirs across the country, from schools to entire towns to military wives. Now to mark the 10th anniversary, he has a dream - to track down and bring together all the choirs he has formed for a huge reunion party. As a centrepiece for this party, he wants to put together his choir of choirs, a super-group of the most talented singers he has encountered over the years. He has got just four short weeks. Can he bring them together in time? And can they pull off a performance that is worthy of a decade's work getting the nation singing? As we follow Gareth on his latest mission, we rediscover the characters and stories of ten years of The Choir. In the first of two episodes, Gareth tracks down ex-pupils from the first two choirs he created at Northolt High School and Lancaster Boys School. He discovers how being part of the choir changed their lives, and how they have gone on to successful careers, many in music. When he gets a group of them together to start rehearsing for the big reunion, they immediately feel the old bonds of camaraderie, and Gareth can't resist suggesting an impromptu performance for friends and family.

Choirmaster Gareth Malone is back. He thinks the Military Wives are the perfect choice to launch the nation's centenary commemorations of the outbreak of World War I, and he pulls together a new Military Wives super-choir to stage a very special prom in association with the National Theatre's War Horse team. It is three years since Gareth formed the first Military Wives choir, and since then the organisation has mushroomed with over 80 choirs and 2,000 members around the globe. In this episode, Gareth sets out to audition as many of them as possible for his 100-strong choir. The wives usually sing pop songs, but Gareth has a repertoire of taxing classical pieces that were popular at the time of the First World War in mind, including Gustav Holst's fiendish Ave Maria set in eight-part harmony and a moving setting of Tennyson's poem Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead, so he needs to recruit the very best technical singers for what will be their toughest ever musical challenge. As the gruelling rehearsals get under way, Gareth discovers that the wives' dignity in the face of the constant threat of the death of their loved ones is as strong as ever, and the wives discover powerful parallels with their counterparts 100 years before them. The first episode culminates in an emotional performance at RAF Brize Norton for some of Britain's last deployment of troops to return from Afghanistan.

Choirmaster Gareth Malone challenges the four remaining workplace choirs to find their souls, rhythm and conviction in a joyful bid to be crowned the year's best workplace choir. Three world class choral judges, an 800-strong audience and the London Community Gospel Choir await them at a celebration concert in one of the country's biggest gospel churches. Spirits are lifted at the fire service amidst news of strike action, the besuited bankers descend into dad dancing, the council workers try to rediscover belief in themselves and the ferry staff exuberantly rock the boat during rehearsals. On the night, potential soloists wait nervously for Gareth to decide who has the courage and fervour to step forward and improvise and lead their choir into the grand final.

As the contest to be crowned 'best workplace choir' continues, choirmaster Gareth Malone enters the embattled world of high finance, high flyers and rock bottom reputation at one of the biggest investment and trading banks in the world, Citi, in London's Canary Wharf. After imagining long lunches and cigars, Gareth finds himself in a lockdown during an anti-capitalist protest, learns how many noughts there are in a trillion, and creates his most musically accomplished workplace choir yet. When the bankers choose to sing Man in the Mirror, could it signal a moment of reflection, or will they drive on with technical ambition and ignore Gareth's attempts to find some heart?

Choirmaster Gareth Malone returns to create harmony in five of Britain's biggest workplaces. As the contest to be crowned 'best workplace choir' continues, Gareth checks out the talent at supermarket giant, Sainsbury's. When the choir's deepest bass breaks cover with his passion for Dolly Parton will the head office high flyers and the shop and depot workers finally sing with one voice, united by the Queen of country?

Choirmaster Gareth Malone returns to create harmony in five of Britain's biggest workplaces. As the contest to be crowned 'best workplace choir' begins, he sets sail with P&O, the UK's longest-running cross-Channel ferry service. With choir members based at sea and on both sides of the English Channel, can Gareth create a musical entente cordiale?

With all of his workplace choirs set up, the contest to find Gareth Malone's best workplace choir begins in earnest as all four choirs compete against each other for the first time. Each choir is given a new song and Gareth piles on the pressure by announcing that they must create a distinctive performance routine if they want to stand out. Each choir has less than four weeks to prepare, before they must perform in front of the three expert judges at Bristol's prestigious Colston Hall. Only three choirs will make it through to the final, one choir will leave but which will it be: Lewisham NHS Trust, The Royal Mail, Manchester Airport or Severn Trent Water?

With two choirs established, Gareth heads north to recruit baggage handlers, air traffic control workers and firemen at Manchester Airport.

Gareth Malone visits Lewisham healthcare NHS Trust to set up the first choir

Choirmaster Gareth Malone believes singing can help people through the most difficult times of their lives. Gareth has been invited to RMB Chivenor Military base in north Devon, where the troops are about to deploy for a six-month tour of duty in Afghanistan. While the troops are away, Gareth starts a choir with the wives and girlfriends who've been left behind. With the choir proving such a success at Chivenor, Gareth decides to start a new choir at a base in Plymouth, whose troops are suffering fatalities out in Afghanistan. Gareth has to manage emotions that ride high as the two choirs struggle to combine, and then he has to persuade them that they are good enough to sing together. Finally singing as one choir, Gareth sets the Chivenor and Plymouth military wives the biggest challenge of their lives: to perform at the Royal Albert Hall on Remembrance Sunday. The women contribute letters and lyrics to a song that is specially created for them by royal wedding composer Paul Mealor. After a six-month wait, and agonising reports of multiple injuries and fatalities on the frontline, the choir members' husbands finally return, to joyous reunions. Now Gareth has to make sure his choir members give it their all, for the once-in-a-lifetime Royal Albert Hall performance.

In Plymouth, Gareth is overwhelmed by eager new recruits for his choir of military wives.

Choirmaster Gareth Malone wants to stage a choral festival at South Oxhey playing fields.

Gareth arranges a public performance for the choir in a daunting concert venue.

Gareth Malone finds out if his choir will make the grade to perform in the Albert Hall

Choirmaster Gareth Malone tries to get the boys ready for the school summer show

Gareth auditions students for the choir and sets out to have them record a CD capable of getting them accepted into the World Choir Games.