Esther declares war on Michael!

Esther declares war on Michael!
Esther declares war on Michael! (Image credit: BBC)

Full-time mum Esther Caddick (Sarah Lancashire) is married to charismatic but competitive choirmaster, Michael (Neil Pearson). Esther's life is turned on its head when her husband leaves her for new soprano Layla (Sarah Alexander). Esther, now predominately alone with their three teenage children Kyle (Corrie's Richard Fleeshman), Georgia and Fred, bears the brunt of her kids' very different reactions to their parent's break-up. Yet while privately nursing her own heartache she refuses to let life get her down. Esther forms a new choir where everyone is welcome in order to help her troubled but musically gifted son Kyle express himself. The guitar wielding, bedraggled band enter the local music festival and find themselves going to head-to-head with Michael and the increasingly deranged Layla. But when Kyle goes missing at the last minute and then Layla tries to sabotage their performance it looks like all is lost until the community's new curate, Jake, steps in and comes to Esther's aid. The band - called 'All The Small Things' after Kyle's favourite group Blink-182 - go on to win the competition.

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Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.