Big School (TV series)

Big School is a British sitcom, starring David Walliams, Catherine Tate, Steve Speirs, Frances de la Tour, Joanna Scanlan and Philip Glenister. It is set in a secondary school and follows the comedic relationships of the teachers.[1] The first series began airing on BBC One on 16 August 2013,[2] and was met with polarised reviews. The final episode of the first series aired on 20 September 2013. On 2 December 2013, BBC One controller Charlotte Moore announced that Big School had been renewed for a second and final series, which concluded on 10 October 2014.[3] In June 2015, it was officially announced that Big School was not to be returning for a third series.[4]

Big School
First series titlecard
Genre	Sitcom
Created by	David Walliams
Written by	David Walliams Dawson Bros.
Directed by	Tony Dow (2013) Matt Lipsey (2014)
Starring	David Walliams Catherine Tate Philip Glenister Frances de la Tour Joanna Scanlan Daniel Rigby Steve Speirs Jocelyn Jee Esien
Composer(s)	David Arnold Michael Price
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	English
No. of series	2
No. of episodes	12 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Mark Freeland
Producer(s)	Jo Sargent
Production location(s)	Salisbury
Running time	30 minutes
Production company(s)	King Bert Productions BBC
Distributor	BBC Worldwide
Release
Original network	BBC One
Picture format	16:9
Audio format	Stereo
Original release	16 August 2013 (2013-08-16) – 10 October 2014 (2014-10-10)
External links
Official website

Plot

The series follows Keith Church (David Walliams), a socially naive chemistry teacher at the fictional Greybridge Secondary School, near Watford, who falls for new French teacher Sarah Postern (Catherine Tate), who believes herself to be an inspirational teacher, in tune with youth culture and a beautiful woman. However, she is also getting attention from the arrogant and rude sports teacher Trevor Gunn (Philip Glenister). Other staff members include Ms Baron (Frances de la Tour) as the alcoholic 'no nonsense' headteacher, Mr Martin (Daniel Rigby), a music teacher with ambitions to be a singer-songwriter, Mr Barber (Steve Speirs), a geography teacher who is having a nervous breakdown and is employed as a caretaker in the second series and Mr Hubble (James Greene), the elderly and unwell head of science. The pupils at the school are portrayed as being mainly interested in social networking, texting and partying and as being bored by the attempts of Mr Church and Miss Postern to engage with them. The most prominent of them in the first series is a streetwise pupil called Manyou, played by Joivan Wade, who is asked for advice on how to succeed with women by Mr Church.[5]

Production

The show was written by David Walliams (who had previously produced Little Britain), along with Dawson Bros., and directed by Tony Dow.[6] Many scenes for the series were shot at Bishopshalt School, Hillingdon, West London.[1] The pupils gave up their school holidays to come to the school and be extras.[7] Other inside shots were filmed at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire.[8] The titles were scrapped in Series 2 and were replaced by simple text at the centre of the screen.

Characters

Character	Actor	Profession	Duration	Year
Mr Keith Church	David Walliams	Deputy Head of Science (2013–14) Head of Science (2014)	1x01–2x06	2013–14
Miss Sarah Postern	Catherine Tate	French Teacher	1x01–2x06	2013–14
Mr Trevor Gunn	Philip Glenister	PE Teacher Geography Teacher (2014)	1x01–2x06	2013–14
Mr Gareth Barber	Steve Speirs	Geography Teacher (2013, 2014) Caretaker (2014)	1x01–2x06	2013–14
Mrs Janine Klebb	Joanna Scanlan	Drama Teacher	1x01–2x04	2013–14
Ms Margaret Baron	Frances de la Tour	Headmistress	1x01–2x06	2013–14
Daphne	Jocelyn Jee Esien	Secretary	1x01–2x06	2013–14
Mr Luke Martin	Daniel Rigby	Music Teacher	1x01–2x05	2013–14
Mr. John Hubble	James Greene	Head of Science	1x01–2x05	2013–14
Nicholas	Matthew Fenton	Pupil	1x01–2x06	2013–14
Jo	Cheryl Fergison	Lab Assistant	2x01–2x06	2014
Pat Carrington	Julie T. Wallace	Lab Assistant	1x01–1x06	2013
Manyou	Joivan Wade[9]	Pupil	1x01–1x06	2013
Beyoncé	Georgia Thompson	Pupil	1x01–1x06	2013
Tina	Carla Ryan	Pupil	1x01–1x06	2013
Ryan	Connor Goodliff	Pupil	2x04-2x06	2014

Guest characters

Character	Actor	Profession	Duration	Year
Mr. Rupesh	Kulvinder Ghir	Bus Driver	1x06	2013
Fenella Forbes	Morgana Robinson	Author	2x01	2014
Dr. Dalton	Jimmy Akingbola	Geography Teacher	2x02	2014
Trish	Karen Taylor	N/A	2x03	2014
Ms Steele	Sylvestra Le Touzel	Ofsted Inspector	2x04	2014
Dean	Jack Carroll	Pupil	2x05	2014
Rita Gunn	Michele Dotrice	Retired (presumed)	2x06	2014

Episodes

Series overview

Series		Episodes		Originally aired
				First aired	Last aired
	1	6		16 August 2013 (2013-08-16)	20 September 2013 (2013-09-20)
	2	6		29 August 2014 (2014-08-29)	10 October 2014 (2014-10-10)

Series 1 (2013)

No. overall	No. in season	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date	UK viewers (millions) [10]
1	1	"Episode 1"	Tony Dow	David Walliams & Dawson Bros.	16 August 2013 (2013-08-16)	5.28
Mr Keith Church decides it's his time to leave the school as none of his pupils seem interested, but the arrival of a new, young, French teacher Sarah Postern has him change his mind; however, the new teacher is catching the eye of all the staff. Meanwhile, the pupils decide to play a prank on Mr Barber, with a slightly imaginative picture.
2	2	"Episode 2"	Tony Dow	David Walliams & Dawson Bros.	23 August 2013 (2013-08-23)	4.50
The school decides to hold a staff talent show; however, some of the staff's 'talents' are not as amazing as hoped. Keith decides that if he performs with Sarah they may get 'closer'. Meanwhile, the students decide to play judge, giving the best Simon Cowell impression they can muster when commenting on the quality of the teachers acts.
3	3	"Episode 3"	Tony Dow	David Walliams & Dawson Bros.	30 August 2013 (2013-08-30)	3.68
Sarah is landed with running the draughts club and suggests merging with Keith's chess club, creating the school's first 'chaughts' club. She goes to his place to discuss a merger and watch Strictly, but Keith is about to regret his first attempt at social networking. Meanwhile, a drugs scandal looms when gym teacher Trevor Gunn is seen with a dealer.
4	4	"Episode 4"	Tony Dow	David Walliams & Dawson Bros.	6 September 2013 (2013-09-06)	2.89
Sarah warns the other teachers to be careful around troubled student Josh, whose mother has run off and divorced his father. Keith is fired from the job as theatre critic for the school, and so Sarah has to watch Mrs Klebb's production of "Juliet & Romeo", taking Josh's dad with her. Could Keith be... jealous?
5	5	"Episode 5"	Tony Dow	David Walliams & Dawson Bros.	13 September 2013 (2013-09-13)	2.93
Sarah puts herself down for an Ironman competition, but realises all too late what is involved. Trevor offers to help her train, and Keith tags along, taking an unusual interest in PE suddenly. Mrs Klebb tries to stop violence at school, but the teachers aren't listening. Meanwhile, Mr Barber has taught the wrong Geography course.
6	6	"Episode 6"	Tony Dow	David Walliams & Dawson Bros.	20 September 2013 (2013-09-20)	3.85
Keith bargains his way onto Sarah's school trip to France, and events on tour do not go as planned for the staff.

Series 2 (2014)

No. overall	No. in season	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date	UK viewers (millions) [10]
7	1	"Episode 1"	Matt Lipsey	David Walliams & Dawson Bros.	29 August 2014 (2014-08-29)	2.90
When Miss Postern sets up a careers workshop, it seems her 'Which Way Now?' slogan applies as much to her as it does her pupils.
8	2	"Episode 2"	Matt Lipsey	David Walliams & Dawson Bros.	5 September 2014 (2014-09-05)	2.60
It's Miss Postern's birthday and she is upset when everyone forgets. But the arrival of a new teacher (who just happens to be blind) changes everything and puts her day into a different light. Mr Church and Mr Gunn hear this news and are not happy about it.
9	3	"Episode 3"	Matt Lipsey	David Walliams & Dawson Bros.	12 September 2014 (2014-09-12)	2.30
It's parents' evening and all the staff want to make sure it is over before the new episode of 'Great British Bake Off'. Mr Gunn thinks that he has a secret child at the school, and sets out to make his days as fun as possible. Miss Postern struggles to stop people looking at her cleavage and is told by Ms Baron (who tries to avoid the event all together) that she is a "Parisian prostitute".
10	4	"Episode 4"	Matt Lipsey	David Walliams & Dawson Bros.	19 September 2014 (2014-09-19)	2.60
When Ofsted arrive to conduct an impromptu inspection, Greybridge School is thrown into even more chaos than usual.
11	5	"Episode 5"	Matt Lipsey	David Walliams & Dawson Bros.	3 October 2014 (2014-10-03)	2.40
The staff celebrate when Mr Hubble chalks up 40 years of service at Greybridge School—although no sooner has he accepted his gift, he drops dead without anyone realising. When Mr Gunn and Mr Church finally cotton on, it's left to the bumbling duo to get the body out of the school before anyone else notices. Meanwhile, Miss Postern has a new poster boy for her anti-bullying campaign—a disabled boy who was moved from his last school because of intimidation. But the well-meaning French teacher soon discovers nothing is as it seems.
12	6	"Episode 6"	Matt Lipsey	David Walliams & Dawson Bros.	10 October 2014 (2014-10-10)	N/A
A homeless Mr Barber spends the night in the school, only for disaster to strike when he causes a fire in Miss Postern's classroom. It falls on the reluctant Mr Gunn to put a roof over his head. The disaster is good news for Mr Church, as Miss Postern moves into his laboratory while her room is redecorated—but they soon find sharing doesn't come naturally.

Overnight ratings are not official and do not include views on BBC iPlayer, BBC HD or recorded catch-up services. They are just a note of the number of viewers on the BBC channel at the time of airing, and therefore are not an accurate representation. Official accurate figures are released 10 days after original transmission by BARB.

Reception

The series was met with mixed feedback. Dan Owen of MSN described it as "An amusing and pleasant way to spend 30 minutes",[11] and The Guardian said of Walliams: "This performance, and his writing, gives the show good jokes and heart."

There was negative feedback to the opening of the series, with The Daily Telegraph stating: "A bit tired, perhaps, the school thing, but surely a straightforward setting for a sitcom" before concluding "Let's just put it this way: amusing it was not. Mission aborted."[12] MSN UK said, "Like most BBC comedies aiming to please mass audiences, there were plenty of moments that didn't work, but the writing avoided being outright terrible. A family show like this (even one inexplicably broadcast post-watershed) simply can't please everyone all the time".[11]

The series opened to 4.2m viewers. The second instalment scored 3.63m (17.4%) for BBC One, making it the most watched programme of prime time outside of the soaps and news for the night.

DVD release

The first series of Big School was released on DVD on 23 September 2013.[13]

The second and final series was released on DVD on 13 October 2014.[14]

References

1. "Remains of the school day: David Walliams and Catherine Tate in Big School - Features - TV & Radio - The Independent". independent.co.uk. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
2. "BBC One Sets Premiere Date For 'Big School' - TVWise". tvwise.co.uk. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
3. "David Walliams comedy Big School gets second series on BBC One - TV News - Digital Spy". digitalspy.co.uk. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
4. Nicola Methven (7 July 2015). "David Walliams to write new sketch show 10 years after Little Britain ended". mirror.
5. "Big School at BBC Media Centre". Bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 19 September 2014.
6. "Big School - Production Details & Cast and Crew - British Comedy Guide". comedy.co.uk. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
7. "BBC One - Big School, Series 1 - Interview with Catherine Tate". Bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 19 September 2014.
8. "Big School Information". Philipglenisterfans. Retrieved 19 September 2014.
9. "BBC One - Big School, Series 1, Episode 2". Bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 19 September 2014.
10. "Weekly Viewing Summary (see relevant week)". BARB.
11. "Big School: decent David Walliams and Catherine Tate sitcom". tv.uk.msn.com. Archived from the original on 1 February 2014. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
12. "Big School, BBC One, review - Telegraph". telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
13. "Big School - Series 1 [DVD]". Amazon.co.uk. Retrieved 19 September 2014.
14. "Big School - Series 2 [DVD]". Amazon.co.uk. Retrieved 19 September 2014.

External links

• Big School on IMDb
• Big School at BBC Programmes
• Big School at British Comedy Guide