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.

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

In 2006, Gareth Malone tried to take a choir to the World Choir Games in China from a school that had never had a choir before. He did it in nine months. This programme catches up with Gareth and the students to find out how their lives have changed since.

Northolt School revisited

Gareth Malone takes his choral mission to the Lancaster School, an all-boys' school in Leicester which, like the school in the first series, has no previous singing tradition. The single-sex education setting focuses the programme on issues of gender as Malone tackles the perception that "boys don’t sing".

Gareth Malone joins the teaching staff and has to work to gain the trust of fellow teachers. His ambition is to form a 100-strong, all-boys choir performing out on the stage alongside the best school choirs in the country as part of the Schools Prom concert at the Royal Albert Hall. As he tries to drive through his ambitious plans, he also has to spend time in classroom teaching, deal with the daily bureaucracy of being a teacher, and coping with staff politics

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

Choirmaster Gareth Malone decides it's time the boys learnt to sing in ancient Italian.

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

Episode 4

Gareth Molone returns to Lancaster School  to see if he has made a lasting impact

Boys Don't Sing: Revisited

Choirmaster Gareth Malone heads to South Oxhey to look for recruits for his choir project.

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

Gareth arranges for both his choirs to sing alongside highly accomplished musicians.

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

Gareth Malone returns to South Oxhey to catch up with the choirs he created in 2009.

Unsung Town: Revisited

Gareth Malone forms a choir with the partners left behind by troops away in Afghanistan.

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

The choir is challenged to perform at the Royal Albert Hall on Remembrance Sunday.

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.

Military Wives: Compilation

In February 2011 Gareth Malone went to the military base at Chivenor to set up a choir for the wives who are left at home alone while their men are on duty for months at a time.

We hear from Gareth and key members of the choir as they reflect on their extraordinary journey culminating in their performance of a song specially written by Royal composer Paul Mealor at the Royal Albert Hall. This seemed like the pinnacle of their achievements - but the film shows how this was the beginning of something much bigger.

We see the women as they embark upon launching what was to become a number one Christmas single, as they visit 10 Downing Street, perform at the Golden Jubilee and then win a Classical Brit. We also discover the legacy of the choir with the establishment of a charitable foundation that provides the support for a growing network of over 60 military wives choirs in bases across the UK, Europe and the Falkland Islands.

A Year with the Military Wives

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

Lewisham NHS Trust

In his mission to get some of the country's busiest workplaces singing, Gareth Malone heads west to the Royal Mail in Bristol. He wants to create the second of four choirs that will compete in the contest to find his best workplace choir. As he searches for hidden talent amongst the managers and posties from across the region, the initial reaction from staff is quite mixed. But as the choir begin to bond through rehearsals, Gareth discovers an enormous sense of pride in the workforce and the song he chooses for the choir to sing hits the right note.

Bristol Royal Mail

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

Manchester Airport

Choirmaster Gareth Malone continues his mission to get some of Britain's busiest workplaces singing. This week he travels to the Midlands to set up final choir in one of the country's largest water companies, Severn Trent Water. Once formed, the choir will sing against three other workplace choirs as they compete for the chance to be crowned Gareth's Best Workplace choir. With over five thousand call centre staff and over five hundred workmen, dealing with everything from raw sewage and finding leaks, finding thirty people to make up the choir appears easy. But as staff are struggling to juggle family commitments and busy work schedules, things aren't plain sailing and Gareth begins to feel the pressure.

Severn Trent Water

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?

The Semi-Final

After last show's semi-final performances in front of the judges, it is time for the final three to battle it out. They face their biggest challenge yet as they perform in front of an audience of thousands at one of the world's most prestigious choral music festivals - the International Eisteddfod in Llangollen. In the audience will be the three expert judges who will decide which choir will win the overall contest and be crowned Gareth's Best Workplace Choir.

The Final

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?

P&O Ferries

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 travels to Birmingham to the biggest council in Europe. He discovers a singing traffic warden, a social worker soloist and a high-pitched gardener. With the next round of government cuts announced mid-rehearsals, some choir members may not have jobs at the end of the year.

Birmingham City Council

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?

Sainsbury's

Choirmaster Gareth Malone feels the heat at Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service, as he continues his bid to find the year's best workplace choir.

Bells and blue lights disrupt auditions but when rehearsals finally get underway Gareth tries to give the backroom staff the confidence to stand tall and be heard amidst the firefighters who attack choral singing with all sirens blaring.

Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service

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?

Citi

In the quarter-final, all of the choirs finally come face to face when they arrive at Gareth's alma mater, the prestigious Royal Academy of Music, the place where he learnt his musical trade, along with the likes of Sir John Tavener, Sir Elton John and Lesley Garrett.

The choirs undertake three days of intense tuition and tackle some of the giants of classical music which, after just 72 hours, they will perform to three world-class judges. Who will continue on their harmonious path with Gareth and show him that they know their Elgar from their elbow?

Birmingham City Council struggles to make Vivaldi glorious, the Cheshire firefighters tackle operatic Verdi with all sirens blaring, and Sainsbury's says a prayer as they attempt Schubert's Ave Maria, while the Citi bankers are desperate to come up smelling of roses with their Flower Duet, and P&O Ferries delve into the depths of Mozart's Lacrimosa. After three of the most musically intense days of The Choir so far, which choirs will satisfy Gareth's determination that they achieve musical excellence?

The Quarter-Final

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.

The final of the competition takes place at Ely Cathedral, Cambridgeshire, where the three remaining choirs perform the world premier of a piece by composer Paul Mealor and lyricist Brendan Graham.

Having been practising intensely for six months, the choirs are now challenged by choirmaster Gareth Malone to interpret the piece however they wish, meaning that within each choir, the members must agree on their strengths, their style and their stars.

Performances, backed by the Ely Cathedral Choir, take place in a packed cathedral, where the most beautiful choral singing has resonated for a thousand years. It then falls to the three judges to decide who will be crowned best workplace choir.

The Choir Christmas Final

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 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 works the wives harder than ever as they prepare to share the stage of the Royal Albert Hall with some of the world's top professional musicians on 3 August - the eve of the day Britain entered World War I.

The wives meet the National Theatre's War Horse team who they will perform alongside, and the planned repertoire forces the wives to confront their own vulnerability. One of the serving wives makes the momentous decision to leave the Armed Forces.

The episode culminates in Gareth and his 100-strong amateur choir giving the most professional and emotionally engaged performance at the BBC Proms.

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.

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.

Gareth continues to spread the word of his reunion to the remainder of his choirs and tracks down some of the best singers from South Oxhey Community Choir, the Military Wives and the nine workplace choirs he formed for his choral contest Sing While You Work. Frenzied rehearsals and preparations for the reunion culminate in a hugely emotional and joyous reunion party with choir members from across the country coming together to celebrate ten years of The Choir.

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?

Gareth Malone launches his exciting singing contest to find Britain's most entertaining amateur choir.

This week, Gareth is looking for a group to represent Wales and the Midlands. His audition tour features a Leicester gospel group, a Telford community choir led by the local vicar, singing students from Nottingham and an all-female choir from a Welsh mining town, plus an eyebrow-raising surprise at a countryside garden party.

But who will Gareth bring back to the sing-off? And will his chosen choir rise to the challenge of a public performance in their home town?

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.

In the last leg of his tour of the UK, Gareth scours the south east, looking for a fourth choir to fill the last semi-final place.

Contestants include members of a Battersea beatbox academy, a choir comprised of NHS staff and a gifted group of Reading sixth-formers put together by their maths teacher.

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.

Episode 5

The grand final of Gareth Malone's contest to find Britain's most entertaining, undiscovered amateur choir. From the hundreds who applied, and the many groups Gareth auditioned across the country, just three are left standing. All that now stands between them and the title of series champion is one last challenge - one that comes with a twist. While the loss of their leader poses a problem for one choir, another group decamps to the country to focus all their energies on victory. The choirs have just ten days to perfect their performances before they compete one final time, in front of a 2,000-strong crowd and a jury of musical experts, at London's prestigious Central Hall Westminster. To emerge triumphant, the choirs must impress the jury, whose votes decide who will be crowned Gareth's Best in Britain.

Episode 6

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.

In the second episode, staff and pupils are back in their building after more than a year away. The uncertainty around the return is now behind them and they focus on the concert.

Gareth Malone faces a challenge which will test him like no other – to form a choir in one of the toughest prisons for young offenders. What he learns takes him by surprise.

With just three weeks to go, Gareth has only seven performers and a handful of half-baked songs. Gareth is still hoping to get a performance together but in prison things never go to plan.

The Choir is a BAFTA award winning TV series following Gareth Malone as he tackles the task of teaching choral singing to people who have never had the chance, or experience to sing before. The first series aired in 2006, the second series, The Choir: Unsung Town, which involved the creation of a choir in South Oxhey, Hertfordshire began on BBC Two on 1 September 2009, whilst the third series, The Choir: Military Wives was aired in November 2011.

All Episodes of The Choir

Browse all episodes of The Choir

Season 1

Episode 1

Season 1 Episode 1 - Aired 12/4/2006

Episode 2

Season 1 Episode 2 - Aired 12/11/2006

Episode 3

Season 1 Episode 3 - Aired 12/18/2006

Northolt School revisited

Season 1 Episode 4 - Aired 1/25/2008