A choir of Yorkshire miners, the family of a road crash victim and dozens of bikers performing a rock anthem all feature in a 30-minute film, A1: The Road Musical, which will be screened on television this evening.

The ambitious project, which draws inspiration from an eclectic mix of music ranging from jazz baroque to Noel Coward via The Clash, was dreamt up by director and composer Benjamin Till in an attempt to provide a snapshot of the famous road's long and winding history.

Mr Till, who lives close to the A1 in Highgate in north London, drew on his time as a music student at York University for the programme, which has taken nearly eight months to complete.

The university's chamber orchestra, in which Mr Till played the cello before he graduated in 1995, is featured performing against an industrial backdrop of coal heaps and dumper trucks at Ferrybridge, near Pontefract.

Mr Till, 35, who grew up in Bedfordshire close to the A1, said: "The road has kept coming back in and out of my life, whether it was in my childhood, travelling up to York for university or where I live now in London.

"It has a certain magic and eccentricity about it, and I wanted to bring out some of the human elements of the A1 through the musical. There is something almost human about it as it stretches out from London all the way to Scotland – there are so many stories tied up in the asphalt."

After spending six gruelling months travelling up and down the route of the A1 to research the programme, Mr Till recruited members of the public who appear in the half-hour musical which is being screened on Channel 4 (7.30pm).

The programme begins with a chorus of car-bound commuters caught up in congested traffic in central London, before it is punctuated with a series of stories as it traces the A1's route to the north.

One of the most moving scenes features Dee Green, the grandmother of Danny Lawrence, a 16-year-old road crash victim from Wetherby, singing his favourite hymn, How Great Thou Art, from an A1 fly-over close to the scene of his death.

The film also includes a carefully-choreographed performance featuring dozens of the bikers who regularly gather at Squires Cafe, near Sherburn in Elmet in North Yorkshire, while another segment is inspired by the bitter miners' strikes of the 1980s.

Former miner Derek John Burton takes the lead in a performance backed by the Rossington Male Voice Choir from South Yorkshire for a song which chronicles the ordeal they endured during the pit closures.

Linking the musical sequences is trucker Dave Brown, who works for Roadways Container Logistics, based in Stourton, Leeds, and has been travelling along the A1 three times a week for the past 30 years.

The 50-year-old father-of-four said: "I know the A1 like the back of my hand and I think it's something pretty special. I suppose you could call it the backbone of the country.

"My friends and family have been really supportive since they heard I was appearing in this show – now we're all just looking forward to seeing it."

The score for the musical has been composed by Mr Till, although he stressed that each of the performers had a significant input into the songs.

Mr Till, who worked as a freelance theatre director and composer before moving into television and film, said: "This is about the people's stories, and you obviously have to let them help shape the music.

"There is no point creating hugely complicated songs. I wanted to make sure their stories really shone through."