Spun-off from his 2019 film of the same name, Guy Ritchie’s Netflix series The Gentlemen exists in the same universe and covers similar themes to the film but is a standalone piece of work. And it’s an almost painfully enjoyable one with almost every character being one you like and dislike in equal measure as it tells the story of a drug empire built amongst the British aristocracy needing a new source of income to maintain their vast estates.
The film was the first time that Ritchie collaborated with composer Chris Benstead and the pair have worked together on nearly everything since then. Benstead’s music for the director tends to be fabulously entertaining – often very bright and colourful, serving as partially ironic accompaniment to Ritchie’s trademark violent action while providing the perfect degree of wit to accompany it.
His music for this show is very much of that ilk. Interestingly, the two seasons so far feature quite different scores, each with its own distinct character. For the first season, the dominant feature is choir – Benstead provides an operatic sweep to proceedings and it’s exceptionally, deliciously enjoyable, quite unlike any other tv music I’ve heard.
It’s hard to put into words the mix of feelings the music generates, but I’ll try – on the one hand it is elegant, opulent, classy – and yet somehow it usually feels absolutely filthy dirty as well. The opening “The Gentlemen Titles” is the whole thing in a one-minute microcosm and Benstead gets much value out of that theme but there’s a second theme, introduced in “Meet Uncle Sam” and later taken further in “Uncle Stan’s Soiree”, with a kind of Karl Jenkins / Adiemus inspiration and it is just completely wonderful.
Another theme (also heard often, for instance in “Grand Complication”) is more overtly comedic – an unmistakable crime caper feel from the dancing strings and winds, albeit the addition of a wordless soprano is hardly standard for that genre. Later, a standalone piece, “Horse and Caravan”, beautifully evokes Ennio Morricone’s famous “Farewell to Cheyenne” from Once Upon a Time in the West. And despite all the elegance, there are times when Benstead reminds you that we are in the 2020s with some modern additions from time to time, always handled tastefully and improving rather than detracting from the sheer enjoyment of it all.
I have developed quite a reputation over the years for not knowing a great deal about anything, and one of the things I don’t know is why Ritchie and Benstead went for a different sound for the second season. The show if anything gets bigger and broader (spreading from the UK to Italy) but the music never quite reaches the same level of excess.
Having said that: it’s certainly not small. There’s no choir this time but the operatic sweep is still present in the grand opening track “The Road to Kingdom”, the difference now is that the darkness is more overt, the depravity of some of the events on-screen depicted directly through the music rather than via irony. It remains very effective and indeed very enjoyable and it’s fascinating that the approach changed so much.
What the music does carry over from the first season is the sense of classical elegance: Benstead continues to rely on a big orchestral sound with a big dramatic heft, embodied by the sheer sweep of the second cue, “Gun Smuggle”. The melodies don’t tend to be as broad though, and there is a more repetitive feel to the second season with its slightly more churning recurring action/suspense motif serving as its dominant feature. The choir is far less prominent but not completely absent – I love “Orbe and Sceptre” where it has a more distant sound, but paired with the organ gives the piece a gloriously liturgical feel.
Had I not heard the first season album then I’d be all over recommending the second one and I don’t want to damn it with faint praise because it is a genuinely good piece of work on its own terms – but there’s something a little bit special about the first one. There’d be no point in having another album of music which is just the same as the first, of course, and it’s more than possible that Benstead simply thought he’d explored that material as much as he could and wanted to do something new – and it is that. Regardless, it’s a fine album of music on its own terms and I continue to be greatly impressed by this fabulous composer.
Leave a Reply