 Please Sir!
1 9 6 8 - 1 9 7 1 (UK)
57 x 25 minute episodes
 Please
Sir! was inspired by the 1967 movie To Sir with Love
and was John Alderton's first starring role since Dr Moon in Emergency
Ward 10.
Stammering English teacher Bernard "Privet" Hedges
was the Form Master over class 5C at tough South London Fenn
Street School in probably the Glammest of all seventies sitcoms
5C were a mob of rowdy, unruly adolescent boys and startlingly
mature mini-skirted young women - A kind of Bash Street Kids gone
to pot. . . .
Duffy was a denim-clad football hooligan who looked at least
five years older than John Alderton but sported a great Rod
Stewart haircut; Sharon was a mini-skirted, dolly bird with a
feather cut while Maureen was a skinny mousy girl with a crush on
Sir. The class featured Malcolm McFee as Craven, David Barry as
Frankie "Hank" Abbott and Pete Denyer as simple but
loveable Dennis Dunstable.
All the kids were played by actors well past school-leaving age
- Most were actually in their early 20s when the show began -
which is why they looked like the most developed fifth-formers
you'd ever seen!
 The
gang caused Bernard much heartache but at least he could share his
sorrows over a cup of tea in the staff room with his fellow
teachers Price (the cynical Welshman), the straight-laced deputy
head Doris Ewell and Norman Potter, the Hitlerian school janitor
(who had been a Desert Rat in the 8th Army during WWII). Noel
Howlett played the the well-meaning but vapid headmaster, Morris
Cromwell.
The 1971 movie of the same name starred the same cast (with a
different Sharon) and a few noteworthy additions, including Jack
Smethurst (from Love Thy Neighbour) as a bus driver.
When Alderton left Please Sir! the series continued as The
Fenn Street Gang from 1971 to 1973, concentrating on the
antics of the kids from 5C after leaving school. Alderton made
guest appearances in this series.
The Fenn Street Gang marked a turning point in the
fortunes of Please Sir!, and in
turn spawned another spin-off, Bowler.
The first Fenn Street series ran simultaneously with the
last of Please Sir! and Esmonde and Larbey were at full
stretch to script all of the episodes; eventually they handed a
dozen Please Sir! programs over to other writers.
With the old 5C disbanded, new pupils were brought into the
cast but they did not capture the viewers as before. Worse, John
Alderton wanted out.
His character, Hedges, had become engaged to Penny Wheeler
during the third series and they were married in the 1970
Christmas special; now he was written out (appearing in three
episodes of The Fenn Street Gang and two of the final
series of Please, Sir! before doing so) to take a year's
course in sociology.
He too was replaced but, again, the formula that had made the
show so successful was now lost, and it somewhat fizzled out from
here, the final episode seeing the perpetual spinster Miss Ewell
marrying Mr Sibley.
The American sitcom Welcome Back Kotter was based on Please
Sir! and gave John Travolta his start in TV. The parallels
between this show and Please Sir! were obvious, but the US
producers did not acknowledge the British predecessor and it was
impossible for anyone to prove otherwise.
The second series of Please Sir! straddled ITV's switch
from black and white to colour transmissions, the first eight
episodes being screened in monochrome, the remaining five in
colour. They were all made in colour, however, as subsequent
repeats proved.
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