I wanted to blog about one of my favorite TV programmes that i have been watching since the new series came out. Bad Education is a school based sitcom, revolving around the life of Alfie Wickers (played by comedian Jack Whitehall) who is a a posh, newly graduated Secondary School history teacher at Abbey Grove school, also described as “the worst teacher ever to grace the British education system” . He has his own class of rowdy teenagers and the relationships between the characters is more friends than teacher student. For example Alfie is always asking favors from student Joe (teachers pet) to help get him out of trouble. Ever determined to impress his crush, Rosie Gulliver, Alfie makes repeated efforts to appear “cool,” such as coaching the school football team, organising a weapons amnesty and fielding a candidate for the school elections. Usually, in these efforts, he will turn to his class (particularly Joe, the “teacher’s pet”), despite the rest of the class’s open disrespect and dislike for him, for help. At the same time, he finds himself having to deal with the shenanigans of his eccentric headmaster, Fraser and meet the expectations of his deputy headmistress, Isobel Pickwell.
Alfie has a hard time managing and disciplining his students and is often mocked and bullied by them, but frequently recruits them to help rescue him from difficult situations. His classes are unusual, using teaching techniques such as re-enacted battles (with tables as trenches and wheelchairs as tanks) and seances to summon the spirit of Hitler in his lessons. Though he pretends in front of the staff that he fully respects school rules, he frequently lets his students break them and breaks them himself.
Each episode follows the dilemmas of the school, run by weird and wonderful headmaster Shaquille “Simon”Fraser (played by Mathew Horne). He fancies himself quite a clever person and enjoys wordplay and metaphor, though it embarrasses his staff frequently. I love the character of Fraser as i find him absolutely hilarious, for example he doesn’t know how to tie his shoe laces even though he is a grown man, however he still has size 5 feet so he can wear children’s shoes, in which he does in episode 1.
Isobel Pickwell (Michelle Gomez) is the Deputy Headmistress at Abbey Grove. She is a very severe woman who believes in rigid discipline. Alfie often compares her to an SS Officer and makes fun of her fascist tendencies. She is deeply conservative and religious, with contempt towards what she believes are Rosie’s attempts to turn the school into a “hippie commune”.
There are mini montages inbetween scenes of each episode, where clips of students at school are shown, either fighting, or rushing to lessons, running down stairs or corridors, with music from this year and moment are played over the top and a blue, yellow and green tint. I think this is a really good addition to the programme as it displays how fresh and modern it is. It also appeals to the younger generation as it uses new music, and the students in the programme wear things that a typical teenager now would wear. For example, Beats headphones and snap-back caps.
The student characters in the programme are:
- Chantelle Parsons (Nikki Runekles) is the sultry female pupil in Alfie’s form. She appears to be sexually promiscuous and this is often remarked on by both her and her fellow pupils. She also has an obvious crush on Alfie and attempts repeatedly to seduce him, as does her mother at parents’ evening.
- Jing Chow (Kae Alexander) is Chinese pupil who often speaks in her native language to insult Alfie which he interprets as a compliment or an answer to a question. Jing appears to be the cleverest and most serious of the group and has previously taken the register, carried on working while everyone else was asleep and helps Alfie take down Pickwell at the end of series one. In Series 1 she is constantly frustrated that Alfie hardly teaches them anything, but in series 2 she comes to Alfie’s aid and comments he is a “Good and Decent man.”
- Joe Poulter (Ethan Lawrence) appears to be Alfie’s closest ally in the class. Often helps out his teacher, having falsely confessed to be gay, pretended his mum has a life threatening illness and taking the blame for various errors and mistakes by Alfie. Often the butt of jokes and pranks by other pupils although they do seem to have affection for him.
- Mitchell Harper (Charlie Wernham) appears to be the tough guy of the class. He often pokes fun at fellow pupils and his teacher. However, Alfie gets his own back by poking fun at Mitchell’s family life, commenting that he doesn’t know who his dad is and how he lives in a caravan. In season 2, it was revealed he is a huge WWE fan.
- Rem Dogg (Jack Binstead) is a disabled pupil who constantly wears a pair of head phones and baseball cap. He comes across as a cheeky chap who pokes fun at Alfie, and is very close friends with Mitchell.
- Stephen Carmichael (Layton Williams) is an openly gay member of the class who has a passion for dancing, musicals and films. He is best friends with Chantelle.
- Frank Grayson (portrayed by Jack Bence) is the school bully who not only intimidates his fellow pupils but in particular Alfie, having once stole his shoes and on another occasion forced him to buy him and his friends cider after it was originally confiscated by Miss Pickwell.
My favorite episode so far has to be episode 1. In this episode Abbey Grove’s new term kicks off with the annual swimming gala and headmaster Mr Fraser decides to pay homage to the fact the UK recently hosted the greatest show on earth, Splash, by ending it with their very own synchronised diving competition. Alfie and his class don’t usually take part in the gala, but lured by a cash bet with deputy headmistress Miss Pickwell he decides to bribe them with a group trip to a restaurant and enter the event. The first day back is also a chance for Alfie to catch up with his girlfriend Miss Gulliver, but he’s shocked to find out that he isn’t in a relationship with her at all, and even more shocked to find out who she is actually dating.
The most hilarious part of the episode is at the end when Alfie thinks he’s overcome his allergy to chlorine, however he soon realises that he cannot see and his eyes have puffed up.
The camera work in this programme is excellent as it uses plenty of long reaction shots when a character is doing something stupid, For example when Fraser has a light saber and is pretending to be Luke Skywalker, the camera shows all the other teachers facing him, staring at him in disapproval and rolling their eyes.
Overall I think Bad Education is an enjoyable and entertaining programme to watch and I would strongly recommend it to other teenagers and fans of Jack Whitehall.
Jessica Morris's AS Blog 