Michelle Gomez

It receives its TV debut on Tuesday, but those looking to catch Jack Whitehall's classroom comedy early can watch it on iPlayer, as part of BBC Three's quietly revolutionary policy of premiering all of its comedy online. Bad Education's still not essential by any stretch, but Whitehall's impudent presence, not to mention that of the always-great Michelle Gomez, means that it remains watchable.

One of the chief joys of Jack Whitehall's sitcom is the superb supporting cast. Mathew Horne plays the tragically uncool head teacher, who longs to be everyone's best mate, to the chagrin of his cringeing staff. Equally hilarious is Green Wing's Michelle Gomez as the menacing, maroon-lipped deputy head who dreams of running the school like a concentration camp. Finally, there's Sarah Solemani as the hippy art teacher who loses her rag after our hapless hero, Mr Wickers, hijacks the school elections.

Everyone is on the campaign trail in this final episode of a series that never quite lived up to its potential. Jack Whitehall's slacker teacher wants one of his miscreants to thwart a junior politician-in-the-making for the job of school president, while Fraser (Mat Horne) campaigns to get his job back after a misdemeanour in the exam hall sees him suspended - much to the undisguised, flared-nostrilled glee of Michelle Gomez's evil Miss Pickwell.

It's not just the presence of (the slightly underused) Michelle Gomez that has us thinking of Green Wing in relation to this very funny school sitcom. People with serious jobs behaving in ridiculous and irresponsible ways is a comedy staple. And Jack Whitehall and, particularly, the revelatory Mathew Horne have struck gold here. Tonight, sex education is on the agenda as the impending arrival of a horde of carnally voracious French exchange students concentrates the minds of staff and parents alike. But is self-styled 'Sex Yoda' Alfie (Whitehall) quite the man for the job? 'I've been sitting in my room, getting to know my penis,' he announces to a roomful of horrified students. If it didn't feel like damning with faint praise, we'd call this one of the best comedies BBC3 has ever screened.

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.

Following on from the surprise that Jack Whitehall can actually act (Fresh Meat), we now get the chance to see if he can write in this new BBC Three sitcom, Bad Education. Judging by this opening episode, the jury's out.

Whitehall also stars in Bad Education, as a feckless secondary school teacher, surrounded by a mixture of odd staff and bosses, as well as somewhat cliché students. You can't help but think that Whitehall is trying to cram every minority and stereotypical student into his classroom, ranging from camp, bullies, unfit fat kids, wheelchair-bound, flirtatious, and intellectual oriental.

He seems to have fallen into the trap of making his own character the number one priority, while almost forgetting to flesh out all the others. The headmaster, played by Mathew Horne, comes across as an over-progressive idiot; Whitehall's love intereste (Sarah Solemani) is a bit too innocent; and the stern and frightening deputy head (Michelle Gomez) is like a less surreal - and less funny - version of Sue White from Green Wing.

There were odd moments of mirth, like Whitehall's Pearl Harbour history lesson, but I think the only reason this could possibly get a second series is because of the star name attached to it.

After the first five minutes of Bad Education, right after the ­Abbey Grove School sexpot started flirting with useless teacher Alfie Wickers, I stopped this Jack Whitehall comedy to dig out my DVD of Please Sir!, the 1960s classic where such a scene was played out weekly involving John ­Alderton and Penny Spencer. Sharon Eversleigh! You were ever-present in my double-physics daydreams with your Cremola Foam pout and your wet-look boots. So the rest of Bad Education was going to have to be good, and mostly 
it was.

Mr Wickers is the kind of teacher who gets his trainers nicked by the school bully, forcing him to continue lessons in purple Crocs retrieved from Lost & Found. He'll say things like "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder - that's Shakespeare, Chantelle" and the super-intel­ligent Chinese girl will have to correct him: "It's actually from the Bible, you idiot."

Mathew Horne's headmaster will chime with anyone who ever had to endure a teacher trying to be "down with the kids"; Michelle Gomez is the soor-ploom-faced deputy who's got it in for Mr Wickers. Their scenes together are the best thing about Bad Education. When she burst in on his classroom, everyone asleep including our hero, he desperately tried to rescue the situation thus: 
"...and that is how quiet Anne Frank and her family had to be to evade capture by the Nazis."

Whitehall plays a posh balloon - the kids nickname him 'Downton Abbey' - not unlike 
his character in Fresh Meat. He may only have one trick but it's a good one.

In school sitcom Bad Education, writer Jack Whitehall reworks his toff slacker student JP from Fresh Meat as toff slacker teacher Alfie. So it won't persuade you that Whitehall isn't a one-trick pony but who cares? It's a funny trick. It also has the wonderful Michelle Gomez, of Green Wing fame, as Alfie's ball-breaking deputy head, stealing every scene she's in with just a flare of her mighty nostrils.

A good first day of term for this new school-set sitcom, the second to launch tonight alongside Sky Living's Gates. Bad Education sees Jack Whitehall casting himself as a flaky loser teaching in a state school, juggling the usual array of tricky students, a ball-busting headmistress (Michelle Gomez), and colleagues both unattainable (Sarah Solemani) and berkish (the brilliant Mat Horne, having a ball). Post-Fresh Meat, Whitehall's on a hot streak, and no mistake.

More school-based humour as comedian Jack Whitehall stars as a hapless teacher straight out of training college in this infectious new comedy. Alfie (Whitehall) seems to have more in common with his pupils - who treat him with both affection and derision - than his fellow teachers. With a fierce deputy headmistress (Michelle Gomez) forever looking for an excuse to fire Alfie, it's just as well that the bonkers headmaster (Mathew Horne) is more tolerant. Alfie's chief quest, however, is to go on a date with the biology teacher (Sarah Solemani).