Jack Whitehall

Sarah Solemani has a slightly thankless role in this, as Miss Gulliver, the love interest of man-child teacher Alfie (Jack Whitehall). At least tonight there's a change of scene: the two of them take Alfie's class on a school trip to the Tring Ink Museum and Petting Zoo. Their coach driver, played by the great Ted Robbins, is suitably awful ("If you look to your right you'll see a lay-by that is, in my opinion, a tad overlit") and before long the trip, like every comedy school trip, has gone very wrong.

Once again, the gags come thick and fast in Abbey Grove School. The teachers scratch their heads, unsure what to do when the pupils become aggressive after playing a violent video game. Luckily, Jack Whitehall's character, hapless history teacher Mr Wickers, has a cunning idea: a weapons amnesty.

Of course all he really cares about is impressing comely teacher Miss Gulliver, so he orders his wide-eyed class to procure as many weapons they can, to ensure it's a success. When his master plan backfires, the dodgy headmaster (Mathew Horne) hires an even dodgier self-defence teacher. Cue a painfully funny scene in which our hero has to be rescued by his pupils.

Three episodes in, and Jack Whitehall's brilliantly silly comedy has lost none of its charm. A new craze in the school, a violent video game, causes uproar. Can hapless teacher Alfie (Whitehall) convince his class that the brain is the greatest weapon of all? And more importantly, who would win in a fight between Stephen Hawking and a shark...? Yes, okay, it's quite similar to a certain early noughties C4 school-set comedy-drama in its set-up - irresponsible teacher whose maturity mirrors that of his pupils - but it's clearly a formula that works. And those of the right age to remember Teachers are likely to forgive the similarities once they've seen Alfie's failed attempts to explain the wonder of 'Pogs' to a class of modern-day 15-year-olds. It's crude, it's silly, but it's very, very funny.

Comedian Jack Whitehall, panel-show guest and star of Channel 4's student comedy Fresh Meat, has also co-written this new comedy in which he plays a posh teacher in a comprehensive school. We're three episodes in now and the schtick is working well. The humour emanates equally from the pupils and the teachers, in particular immature Alfie (Whitehall) and desperate-to-be-cool headteacher Fraser (Mathew Horne). Tonight a violent video game, Tokyo Sin, is causing consternation among the teachers at the school, with Alfie telling his game-obsessed students, "We had crazes too [at school]... we had Pogs [cardboard playing discs]."

Whether you can physically stand to be in the same room as Jack Whitehall for very nearly half an hour pretty much dictates whether or not you'll be tuning in to episode three of his new sitcom. If you're up to the task, then this week a subversive new computer game called Tokyo Sin SS: Deadlight District, in which players are tasked with murdering Nazi prostitutes, threatens the school's moral fibre. Whitehall's feckless Alfie Wickers is still pursuing fellow teacher Rosie, but it's the kids who find themselves with the best lines.

Classroom antics were too frantic for its own good

The second episode of Jack Whitehall's comedy Bad Education tackled the thorny issue of sex education classes - with decidedly mixed results.

Two episodes in and already this Green Wing-esque school comedy starring Jack Whitehall as a posh slacker (what else?) is dipping its wick into sex education. The subject is handled amusingly and imaginatively enough - though we still can't decide if we love or hate Mathew Horne's right-on headmaster and his 'groovy banter'.

It's a shame that Jack Whitehall has thrown everything at his own character in Bad Education (BBC3), and more or less forgotten about everyone else. Michelle Gomez, star of Green Wing and such a hilarious physical comic actor, is unforgivably underused. I'd also like to see more of some of the kids who are brilliant - Chantelle the slag, camp Stephen, Grayson the bully (love the way he says "shut up"). That would give it more layers, more depth. It's all Jack's Alfie though. I guess that's what happens when the writer is also the star. Me me me me me.

BUT - and it's a big, upper-case but - Bad Education is still fabulous, a very silly half-hour of anarchic inappropriate joy. With some lovely situations, and some lovely lines. "Make a noise, like a girl having a crap," teacher Alfie orders pupil Joe, cowering in the girls' toilets, when the deputy goes into the next cubicle to empty a confiscated bottle of cider.

Crucially, and probably because it's the creation of one guy, Bad Education has heaps of personality. It may be a flawed baby, but it's Whitehall's baby.

Jack Whitehall interview

"I remember stealing my sister's Spice Girls Club membership card because I thought it was a club you could go to and they'd be there".