A review by JAMES SOUTHALL

Patrick Doyle has long been a favourite amongst film music fans and for many years held the remarkable record of having every single one of his scores being available on CD.  Sadly, everything changed for him in the late 1990s as he fell seriously ill.  He has now made a full recovery but it seems to have taken a long time for his career to return to full steam, unsurprisingly perhaps.  Since 1998, his assignments have mostly been for foreign movies (including the wonderful recent score for Nouvelle France, one of his finest), romantic comedies not featuring much original music at all, or forgettable Hollywood fare.  His first 17 scores were all released on CD; of the 16 that have followed, only 8 have been.  Fortunately, 2005 was very much a renaissance for Doyle, with first Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and then Nanny McPhee showing firmly that he is well and truly back.

Nanny McPhee is a Mary Poppins for the present generation, and received generally warm reviews, with Emma Thompson - who wrote the screenplay - taking the lead, acting alongside Colin Firth and the usual suspects for this sort of thing like Celia Imrie, Angela Lansbury, Derek Jakobi and Imelda "Steve" Staunton.  There's no spoonful of sugar or feeding the birds or supercalifragilisticexpialidocious here - the 53-minute album is all score.  And a fine score it is too.  Old-fashioned in the best possible way, Doyle combines highly-accentuated dramatics with an impressively light comic touch, in vaguely the same way as he did on Potter, though the emphasis is very much more leaning towards the latter in this case.

The disc opens with the vaguely silly "They've Eaten the Baby!" though its more obvious comic stylings are not typical of what is to come.  The score's beautiful main theme, full of whimsy, is introduced in "Secret Toast and Jam"; it receives many gorgeous arrangements throughout the score, getting its finest workout in the lengthy finale "Snow in August", a simply wonderful creation.  More tensely dramatic sections of the film receive predictably darker tones, with Doyle certainly not shying away from rolling out the dark dramatics in the likes of "Measle Medicine" and a full choir in "I Did Knock", which reaches almost epic proportions.  Miniature comic moments are scored in delightful fashion, with the memorable but brief cues "A Clockwork Mouse", "Soup du Jour", "Toad in the Teapot" and the brilliantly catchy "Bees and Cakes" being of particular note.

This is a really well-constructed score which, despite running through a gamut of styles, never feels inconsistent or schizophrenic as these things tend to in the hands of lesser composers.  It is bright and humorous when it needs to be, and completely touching when it needs to be, and all in all is probably even more enjoyable than Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire; but whichever your favourite, there's no doubt that Doyle has returned to very top form, and let's hope there's plenty more where this came from.

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Tracks

1. They've Eaten the Baby! (2:39)
2. No More Nannies (1:23)
3. Secret Toast and Jam (2:27)
4. A Clockwork Mouse (1:01)
5. The Pink Chair (1:00)
6. I Did Knock (5:59)
7. Goodnight, Children (4:22)
8. Measle Medicine (1:29)
9. Soup du Jour (1:10)
10. I Smell Damp (1:38)
11. Barnyard Fashion (1:34)
12. Lord of the Donkeys (:36)
13. The Girl in the Carriage (3:18)
14. Kites in the Sky (2:25)
15. The Room at the Top of the Stairs (1:42)
16. Toad in the Teapot (3:38)
17. Our Last Chance (2:14)
18. Mrs Brown's Lullaby (1:19)
19. The Lady in Blue (2:01)
20. Bees and Cakes (3:42)
21. Snow in August (7:00)