Thursday, March 09, 2006
Those who can't...
TEACH! Waterloo Road, BBC1, 8.00pm
It's landmark time, dear readers: Shed Productions' first commision for the BBC is finally upon us. Just in case you've never read anything on this website in any depth, Shed Productions are the makers of two of our most favouritest TV programmes ever: Bad Girls and Footballers' Wives, both trashy and insane staples of the ITV1 schedule. Will moving to the highbrow BBC rob them of the kitschness that we love?
Well, we haven't seen this episode yet, so it's hard to tell. Sorry. This show is set in a failing comprehensive school in "The North", where the pupils are all utter hellions and the teachers are either too terrified or too bored to do anything about it. Alarmingly, this show seems to have quite a serious intent and a desire to make a point about the influence of "a few good teachers" to quote writer Ann McManus. Of course, Bad Girls started out as a serious drama about the plight of women in prison before it turned into a lesbian pantomime, so it'll be interesting to see how this one ends up. It's pre-watershed, though, so that means we might not be able to play out favourite Shed drinking game where you sip every time you hear the words "bastard" or "bitch" and you're completely unconscious before the programme's halfway through.
There's some quality casting at work here, if nothing else: Jason "Cutting It" Merrells as the reluctant new headteacher, Angela Griffin as the head of Guidance, Jill Halfpenny as the feisty drama teacher and Denise Welch as the man-eating (of course) French teacher. We're sold.
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