Bad Education

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.

School election time, and there's a clear favourite: budding Blairite David Millbank. With Fraser out as head after an unfortunate exam mishap, deputy headmistrix Miss Pickwell plans to use Millbank to convince the school governors that the role should be hers. Despite never having voted in his life - "My dad does my postal vote for me," - Alfie vows to stop her, and impress Miss Gulliver, by leading hapless Joe to power. Irrespective of your view of Jack Whitehall, this has made for a solid series, set to return next year.

The PE teacher's done a runner, so Fraser decides that Alfie should coach the students for the biggest football match of the year. Jack Whitehall's hapless toff teacher's knowledge of the beautiful game is skimpy; he doesn't even know there's a second half. Things get worse when he comes face to face with his old teacher, who's coaching the opposition. Can a Cheryl Cole-inspired pep talk at half time help Alfie's rubbish team win the match? If calling someone a "spineless little tagnut" makes you titter then you'll find much to guffaw at here, especially in the final moments.

Whether you like Bad Education, Jack Whitehall and Freddy Syborn's schoolroom comedy, will rather depend on how susceptible you are to the charms of Jack Whitehall, who plays Alfie, a feckless man/child teacher who is less interested in teaching his charges than getting them to help him win the affections of Miss Gulliver. This week, the class was off on a school field trip to the Tring Ink Museum and Petting Zoo, even less alluring than it might sound because an outbreak of worms has forced management to introduce a "look but don't touch" policy. Whitehall's character wobbles a little between a knowing cynicism and an over-contrived ingenuousness, but the comedy certainly has its moments. When the assembled pupils are asked if they have any questions by the Ink Museum's depressive manager, he gets this fine example of youthful curiosity: "Would you rather be a dog with a boy's head or a boy with a dog's head?" Takes some answering, that one.

Bad Education success shocked us all, admits Mat Horne

Bad Education star Mat Horne has admitted that he is "shocked" by the show's popularity.

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.

Field trips were the highlight of any school year, a break from the monotony of study, a chance for students to run amok but, in this fourth episode of Jack Whitehall's classroom comedy, it's not only the pupils who are misbehaving. History teacher Alfie (Whitehall) is still bumbling and incompetent, both in his attempts to woo colleague Rosie and demonstrate a maturity that exceeds that of the cast of The Inbetweeners. Unfortunately, this instalment is stranded amid wannabe clever-clever lines, distracting editing techniques and awkward pauses that fail to amuse. Whitehall continues to deliver a poor impersonation of Jeremy from Peep Show and, although a bewigged Mat Horne as the wacky headmaster provides genuine comic relief, his interludes are few and far too brief. This needs to up its game.

Why 'Bad Education' is bad sitcom

This is once again a middle-class comedy that sniggers at the working classes, and plays on lazy stereotypes to guarantee an easy laugh.

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.