Big School

Big School is a win for comedy fans. Drawing inspiration from The Office, Alan Partridge, and even older comedies such as Dear John (Philip Glenister's character channels Kirk St Moritz, especially in Episode 4), there are some incredibly funny scenes.

Better still, because it is character-based - much like The Office and others (Partridge, Frasier) that feature anti-hero cringe characters - it improves on repeat viewing. Familiarity with Big School's characters only makes them funnier.

For some reason Big School has attracted many lukewarm and even highly critical reviews. I recommend that new viewers give it a chance and watch at least a couple of episodes, preferably re-watching them, before dismissing it.

After all, would Frances De La Tour pick a turkey?

David Walliams created and starred in this traditional family sitcom set in Greybridge Secondary School in North London. It had an irritatingly catchy theme tune.

The school setting allows it to have an interplay between the various eccentric teachers and the pupils who found the teachers boring. Walliams played the socially awkward chemistry teacher Mr Church who has the hots for new French teacher Miss Postern (Catherine Tate) who is not very good at French, never been to France and thinks she is really beautiful and men fall over for her. In a sense that is true. Mr Gunn (Philip Glenister) is the macho PE teacher who also has the hots for Miss Postern and vies with Mr Church for her attention. He has a nice line in smutty humour.

Mr Barber (Steve Speirs) is the disorganised Geography teacher who is on the brink of a nervous breakdown. He returned in the second series demoted as the caretaker. Speirs stole the show with his hound dog face. Mr Hubble (James Greene) is the head of science who is too old and confused. Julie T Wallace is the lab assistant who is infatuated with Mr Church.

Frances De La Tour is the headmistress who is too drunk to care about the teachers and the pupils. Daniel Rigby is the music teacher who dreams of being a famous singer-songwriter.

The series was never very funny but it was amiable enough and something you can watch with all the family. I think Walliams put too much effort with his characters and needed to pepper the script with stronger and more off beat humour.

Big School is a fantastic comedy show starring David Walliams, Catherine Tate, Philip Glenister, Francis de la Tour and Steve Speirs. Each episode is well written and each character stands out for me. Mr Gunn is particularly hilarious with some of the comments he makes, much to the disapproval of Mr Church, Mr Gunn reminds me of Jay from the inbetweeners a bit. And the Greybridge teaching staff wouldn't be a school without head teacher Ms Baron played by Francis de la Tour. Almost everything Ms Baron says is an instant gag plus with the Walliams and Glenister combination, Big School makes for a wonderful comedy show with gags every minute! Catherine Tate as Miss Postern makes the show for me, without her, there wouldn't be frantic quarrelling between Mr Church and Mr Gunn in almost every episode. There's heart-warming moments in the series as well as well crafted dialogue between the teaching staff, Series 1 episode 4 being my favourite episode so far!

It's a 10/10 for Big School, I would highly recommend it, although it can be crude at times so only to those 15 and up! Can't wait to see the last 2 episodes in Series 2 and hopefully Big School will return for a Series 3 next year!

So the BBC released a promo for this show, and two comedians who I like very much (Walliams and Tate) were featured in it. I thought, "I should watch it". I missed the first three episodes but caught up on iPlayer, and may I say I'm glad I did.

This show is underrated by other reviewers on IMDb, it really is a good 30 minutes of British TV. The characters are good and the episodes are entertaining and funny on most occasions. It's not THE BEST comedy show there is, but it really is on my top list for the moment. I recommend trying the series on iPlayer, it's worth it. Walliams and Tate work well together on screen, and despite having some sadly true moments, it has very laugh out loud comical moments.

Hilarious. Very clever, smart comedy! Has me literally laughing out loud every episode, the acting is superb. There is a continuous story line with every episode which is very engaging, the situations are hilarious and the jokes and comments are simply hilarious. Humor is subjective but I think this show is a total winner. I can't wait until its release on DVD! And I am really hoping for future seasons of this show. Tate is just amazing in this show, and all the actors are great. Love the characters they have come up with.....just hilarious! Good job to the creators and I really hope that there are going to be many more seasons.