It’s a strange experience to watch a bio-pic of someone who used to have the singing lesson after yours. Members of Stephen Hawking’s family crossed my path in various ways when I was in Cambridge. I don’t think I ever sang in a choir with his wife Jane, but we shared a singing teacher.
In one scene she joins her church choir. Often scenes of music making in films are very inaccurate, particularly church music (anyone remember the village church with a full-scale Cathedral choir and acoustic in A Room with a View?) This one had singers of the right sort of standard singing plausible music (Mozart’s Ave Verum, rather curiously abridged) in a typical-looking parish church (though interior and exterior shots didn’t match). What amused me most about this scene was that Mrs Hawking was told (without having been auditioned) ‘You will be a valuable asset’. Exactly the same words as said to me when I was last auditioned (although I don’t think I was described as ‘valuable’!)