Friday, May 04, 2001
Earlier this week Tony Blair announced to the world that he needed glasses for reading, and would be wearing them in public from now on. He explained when it was he realised he couldn’t go on bluffing in his speeches any more.
In one address he had got to a line which went, ‘There’s been a huge increase in problems of drugs, social exclusion and crime amongst teenagers.’ But instead of ‘teenagers’, he said ‘teachers’. He doesn’t need glasses – he’s just been watching Channel 4 on Wednesday nights.
After the earnest school-based dramas like ‘Hearts and Minds’, ‘Teachers’ instead uses the staff room as a basis for comedy and character, not posturing and politics. So a real teacher might not often smoke dope with their pupils, or get down and dirty in the stationery cupboard, but so what? I’m not sure how many Boston lawyers see dancing babies or have sex with complete strangers at carwashes, but we don’t criticize ‘Ally McBeal’ for not being realistic (in fact, recently, we criticise ‘Ally McBeal’ for just being crap, but that’s another story).
‘Ally McBeal’ and ‘Teachers’ both give us ensemble playing and fantasy elements (brilliantly done in ‘Teachers’, by the way) and they both show us that people in apparently responsible jobs are just as unreliable and flaky as the rest of us. In fact, they act just like big kids.
In the legal profession, authority is hedged about with smart suits, mad hourly rates and all the trappings of the judicial system. Teachers might appear a bit more lowly, with their poor wages and clapped out cars, but parents entrust their little darlings into their hands every day, and might expect a bit of maturity.
Not when you’ve got Egg as your leading man. A while ago Andrew Lincoln played a teacher in the costume drama ‘The Woman in White’, and it looked all wrong – all I could think about was him in ‘This Life’ lying in bed moaning about something while Millie fussed around getting ready for work.
So it’s good to see him back where he belongs. Lincoln’s mastered the portrayal of charming but feckless young men who are fighting against growing up and all that it entails – responsibility, commitment – that stuff he’s supposed to be teaching the kids, of course.
Hanging out with his two fellow teachers in a sty of a flat, going to the pub straight after classes, and scrambling around at the last minute to get stuff handed in, Simon is still a student at heart. Just in case we haven’t sussed that, he still rides a bike.
This creates the perfect opportunity for the fun and frolics we saw in the early episodes, especially when Lincoln is supported by tight writing, a good cast, smart direction and a class soundtrack (pun absolutely intended).
But in the last couple of shows, the writers have wisely decided to try and force the character to grow up a bit. Simon’s problem is that he has no problem being self-centred and unreliable, but he does have something of a conscience. So when he finally realizes that his laziness can cause problems for other people he likes (namely his best friend Susan), he gets all confused and uncomfortable. Like someone’s given him a huge bag of sweets and he’s discovered to his horror that he doesn’t actually want to eat them all in one go.
What I think is happening (and here I could be completely wrong) is that the stage is being set for Simon to wise up enough to stop his juvenile fantasies about Jenny, and prove himself worthy of Susan, who’s conveniently just left her man, and is far and away the most likeably together character in the show.
As if to underline his character arc, Jenny’s been softening, Brian’s been wanting to ditch his tracksuit, and the mute secretary’s begun to speak. Things will get worse before they get better – big fight between Simon and Maggie of course – but underneath all the swearing and juvenile humour, I think there’s some old comedic conventions about to fall into place. Can you say ‘happily ever after’?