Bad Education

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.

Bad Education ratings soar on BBC Three

Bad Education managed to build on its record-breaking opener last night, pulling huge figures for BBC Three.

Bad Education - Episode 1.2 review

It was hilarious, packed full of excellent, consecutive one-liners and really must be caught on iPlayer if you missed it!

No school comedy would be complete without an excruciating sex education class and Jack Whitehall doesn't disappoint. As hapless history teacher Mr Wickers he wriggles and squirms and clearly yearns to crawl under a desk away from the pitying gaze of his worldly-wise pupils. The only person more immature is the head (Mathew Horne in a hilariously hideous wig) who befuddles his staff and enrages parents with his senseless slang. There hasn't been a sitcom this masterfully puerile since The Inbetweeners.

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.

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.