Highly Overrated But Still Good

Absolutely Brilliant!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

Only one series was made of this extremely funny and insightful series. The writers clearly knew their quarry. The characters are from real life, just that comedic-bit enlarged to give dramatic punch. Having taught in such a place for 34 years, you see those types reflected here. The writing is sharp and includes lots of seemingly-irrelevant details, but which contribute to the success of the whole. The cast is exceptionally strong, having fine players in all the key roles, the children included. This sort of traditional comedy does not fit into the modern BBC's view of itself as a reforming left-wing advocate, so it has never been repeated or released on DVD. It is very funny, though and has a following which admires its qualities of observational humour, whatever the politics-de-jour at Broadcasting House. Nigel Planer is tremendous as the main character, a keen new language teacher in a school of sleepy old professionals. You will laugh out loud at this, if you haven't seen it before, unless you are averse to school-based comedy. Production standards are very high throughout, this is high-quality television.