Big School

Big School

3 / 5

Channel: BBC

Series: Two

Currently airing Friday nights on BBC 2

Cast: Frances de la Tour, Catherine Tate, David Walliams, Philip Glenister et al

Series two of the school comedy that focuses on the teachers rather than the pupils. Primarly, it focuses on Mr Church and his lustings for new teacher Miss Postern (Catherine Tate), but his rival Mr Gunn (Philip Glenister) always seems to show up at the wrong times...

Series one was not my favourite, though I watched them all. Anything that David Walliams (or Matt Lucas) does will never top Little Britain, and I'm not sure I want it to. Whilst Big School isn't as laugh out loud funny as Little Britain was, it still has charm. I think it's quite English, too, and I find it totally believable that the teachers are more engrossed in themselves and other teachers than they are the pupils. At my school my History teacher was snogging the Geography teacher in the store cupboard whilst we were learning about the Lusitania.

Whilst it's not laugh out loud, it is charming and I usually label comedies like these as pleasant. I like the characters and their situations-whilst not hilarious-are reality-driven and even though I crave the crazy more regularly than most, I find it soothing to just watch something that makes me smile more than anything else.

The best part of Big School, in my super expert opinion ja, is Philip Glenister. We have some really amazing actors in this country right now (Cumberbatch, Freeman, Hiddleston, Pegg, Gatiss, Richardson) and Glenister is definitely up there with them in my opinion. His character Mr Gunn couldn't be any different to the Gene Hunt he played in Life On Mars and Ashes to Ashes, and for a serious actor to move in to comedy is quite the feat and he does it really well. I watch it mostly for him, if I'm honest, although Frances de la Tour plays the Drinking-During-Workhours Head really well, too.

It's pleasant. You won't die laughing but it'll hold your attention long enough for light relief. It's also such a joyous refrain from all those damn panel shows and stupid reality programmes and bloody hell what even is that? kind of shows. You know the ones.