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Please Sir!
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| Year: |
1971
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Director: |
Mark Stuart
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| Stars: |
John Alderton, Deryck Guyler, Noel Howlett, Joan Sanderson, Peter Cleall, Peter Denyer, Patsy Rowlands, Richard Davies, Jill Kerman
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| Genre: |
Comedy |
| Rating: |
  6 (from 3 votes) |
| Review: |
First day of school, and emotions are mixed - for the students, there's fun, friends, and jokes to be enjoyed, whilst for the teachers, terror and mishap at every turn. For this is Fenn Street School.
After a terrible start to the day (provoking a riot in morning assembly), 5C are soon put in their place by their teacher Mr Hedges. However, when he finds out the reason for their behaviour - the fact that this class have never been allowed to go on any school trip for fear of causing permanent embarassment - he's immediately off to the Headmaster's office to demand they are treated fairly. And so 5C get to go to camp - on the proviso that Mr Hedges also goes, and is fully responsible for their actions......
At the camp, chaos duly reigns - they are sharing the camp with a class of rich kids in uniform from a boarding school, and this will always bring out the worst in Fenn Street's kids. The main characters are Eric Duffy, group leader and boyfriend of the lovely Sharon; Peter Craven, the clever womaniser, always on the lookout for a shapely figure; Frankie Abbott, whose efforts to grow up are always hampered by his overbearing mother; Maureen Bullock, strictly Catholic and in love with her teacher, and Dennis Dunstable, whose home life is turbulent and for whom the trip to the country is a life-changing experience. Add to this local girl Penny, whose attraction to Mr Hedges is tempered by her initial belief that he beats his 'ethnic minority' pupils, and there's a recipe for fireworks at every turn.
This film was made on the back of the successful British TV series, and all the main characters are here, prefectly played by John Alderton as well meaning but clumsy Mr Hedges, Derek Guyler as the downtrodden janitor struggling for control, and everyone else, whether staff, student, or extra. It's a fun 90 minutes - if you remember the TV series you'll love reminiscing, and if you are too young for this, the vision of school life 35 years ago will in turn appear both startling and reassuringly familiar.
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| Reviewer: |
Paul Shrimpton
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