Bad Education series four review – at least this lazy sitcom got rid of Jack Whitehall

Bad Education series four review – at least this lazy sitcom got rid of Jack Whitehall

This pointless revival of the awful BBC comedy sends its one-time star behind the camera and is slightly better for it. But it’s still a clumsy, slapdash show packed full of weak jokes

Layton Williams as Stephen in series four of Bad Education
Light entertainment … Layton Williams as Stephen in series four of Bad Education. Photograph: Matt Crockett/BBC/Tiger Aspect Productions

When Bad Education started on BBC Three in 2012, it was tempting to dismiss it as just a career booster for Jack Whitehall: ticking off a sitcom would be another staging post in the standup comic’s charmed journey towards the comedy A-list. The idea of a sitcom set in a chaotic secondary school didn’t sound as if much thought had gone into it, and Whitehall’s character – rookie teacher and overgrown public schoolboy Alfie Wickers – was bound to be another version of his cheeky-toff stage persona. Great sitcoms require toil and heart to get right – surely Whitehall couldn’t possibly have tossed off a classic?

If you dismissed Bad Education on those grounds and never watched it – congratulations, you were absolutely right. Alfie was Jack Whitehall being Jack Whitehall, everyone else was a flat, lazy cartoon, the series was awful and the fact that it ran for three seasons and resulted in a honking spin-off movie was depressing when you thought about it – although you probably didn’t.

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