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, Maurice
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 - 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! 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.
TRIVIA NOTE
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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