★★★★☆
It’s May 1997 and, as you may remember, things could only get better, particularly at Wordsworth comprehensive School, which is in uproar. We join Tobias, the German language assistant, on his first day there. But, first, before we watch the teachers endure another pep talk from the starry-eyed headmaster, let’s have some music. How about Take That? Oasis? There’s always Katrina and the Waves, who have just won Eurovision.
This is an endearing but unflinching look at blackboard Britain. It’s written and devised by The Wardrobe Ensemble, the Bristol-based group, and it has been described as their love letter to the schools of the 1990s.
It was a brilliant idea to let us observe the school through the foreign eyes of Tobias (James Newton),