Allelujah: Actor Bally Gill talks about new film role as NHS doctor

Bally Gill says his parents wanted him to become a doctor. He chose acting, but now he's playing an NHS medic in his first film role.

You might have seen Bally in BBC drama Sherwood, or as Agent Singh in Apple TV's Slow Horses.

For his big screen debut, he's starring alongside some of Britain's biggest acting names - Dame Judi Dench, Jennifer Saunders and Russell Tovey.

The film - Allelujah - has been called a "love letter to the NHS".

Adapted from a play by Alan Bennett, it focuses on a community trying to save an old people's ward at a small Yorkshire hospital.

After learning it is threatened with closure, the locals are galvanised into action.

Bally's character, Dr Valinder Singh Vashish, is pivotal in their efforts to save it.

The 30-year-old tells BBC Asian Network he felt "blessed" to be working with household-name actors.

"I felt the pressure at the beginning," he says, remembering when he first walked on to the film set based in a derelict hospital in Tottenham, north London.

"But after meeting them they were so wonderful and encouraging and lovely to be around," he says.

"I was constantly asking them questions about the industry."

He says the film "highlights the plight" of the NHS today and the challenges faced by staff, but the story also weaves in plenty of humour.

His character is referred to as Dr Valentine by others in the film "because no-one can pronounce his Indian name".

But the film is also about surviving old age, and Bally feels his character explores how we can learn from the older generation.

He says the elderly are "often left to the side and forgotten about like they don't have anything to provide in later life".

Bally, who's from Coventry, says Allelujah also explores differences between British and South Asian culture, where it's more common for generations of families to live together.

He explains it's not unusual to "rally around our old people which can be culturally different to British society".

Bally lost his grandmother to cancer earlier this year, and he says the "real-life experience with the NHS" echoed scenes he'd filmed.

He says Allelujah, filmed during the Covid pandemic with regular tests for cast and crew, has a clear message for its audience: "To appreciate the NHS".

It's released in the same week as a strike by junior doctors over their pay and working conditions.

"We need to give staff a voice", Bally says, and appreciate what they do despite being "understaffed and underpaid".

It's also no coincidence that the film hits screens as the NHS turns 75.

"The NHS is unique, it's needed and it saves lives," says Bally.

Allelujah is released on Friday 17 March.

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