School of Comedy

2009
7.1| 0h30m| en
Synopsis

School of Comedy is a British character-based comedy sketch show which was turned into a television show after a successful run of review shows at the Edinburgh festival. The cast is entirely made up of children much like in the popular musical Bugsy Malone which creator Laura Lawson often references to in interviews about the show. The show comprises sketches involving a very diverse group of characters; from a lesbian couple in 1940s war-time Britain, to a pair of South-African security guards. The show is unique from other comedy sketch shows because even though the show's content is mature enough to need to be shown after the watershed, the roles are all played by teenage children of ages 11 – 15. The show ran for two series' on E4 from 1 October 2009 to 18 October 2010. The show has been credited with starting the careers of both Will Poulter and Jack Harries. Poulter has gone on to star in films such as Son of Rambow, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and We're the Millers, while Harries has gone on to start a YouTube channel named "JacksGap", which currently has over 2 million subscribers and has made Harries both well-known and popular on the internet.

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Trailers & Clips

Also starring Beth Rylance

Also starring Jack Harries

Reviews

Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated
Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!
Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
markrequest 5.3 is not a truly reflective score for this show. Available on 4od.com, I return to it quite often to cheer me up. Complaints about the writing or the concept of kids doing adult humour fall flat on the ground with me. The true concept is that here we have young teenagers developing enough of an understanding about adult life and using their comedic talents to poke fun at it. As for the writing, it is subjective to British life. That said, the viewer needs to overcome the fact that it is being delivered by children, albeit teenagers. When you can appreciate both points, teens making fun of adults with adult based humour, then you are in for a treat. The French taxi passenger who finds football boring and prefers opera and small boys, the estate agent reluctant to show the last room and the (sublime) sketches of the two immigrant South African security guards. Even the thought that teenagers can make fun of these tickles but to see it enacted, and so well, is hugely enjoyable.
Lyco499 Have you ever sat there and watched hours of something so terrible, so bizarrely bad you feel retarded? Well I have, for I watched every episode, both series of this over the last 2 days. I don't know why, I laughed once and I have to admit I laughed at a rather damn good sketch, in the very last episode (a "woman" narrating everything at a dinner party where the predictable punch line is everyone can actually hear her slagging them off) it wasn't clever or special or unique but it tickled me.Other than that I enjoy the South Africans, possibly because I find the accent pretty. It tries to marry the juvenile and the mature with no luck and at times you feel feel genuinely bad for the cast. By far the most painful of the recurring sketches have to be the cab driver, the art gallery chubby chaser and the white van men. Basicaly they use material that would be good for one sketch, if that, and then do it over and over and over again. Don't get me started on the impromptu lip syncing.Although it has endeared me to Will Poulter, whose hideous way of speaking in Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader made me hate him for a long time. Yes I know Eustace Scrubb is meant to be an unlikable, repugnant character but still, there is no excuse for that mannerism.And while they seem to have turned the canned laughter slider down in between Series', they still use it too much. And some of the better recurring sketches from the first series were thrown out and not replaced in the second. The misanthropic bar maid from the first series was brilliant in a cringe worthy way.That sums the whole show up really, car crash television. Some morbid fascination with misery and pain keeps you watching when you know it's wrong. And a lot of it is so bad it swings back around to good, in a cringe worthy pitiful kind of way. However I do think some of the actor's are pretty talented, some of the girl's play perfectly believable adults (one of which would do better if she didn't have braces).Well there you go, my long winded confused sh-peel.
Aruu Unfortunately E4 have a habit of pimping out shows that turn out to be awful. We've had the 'School of Comedy' all but forced down our throats for the past few weeks in the form of adverts, text within other programs, and the promise that we're going to wet ourselves laughing at children acting like adults.Unfortunately it failed to deliver. It's a good concept if the thought of children acting like grown ups is enough to make you go into fits of laughter, but if you're expecting anything deeper you'll be disappointed. The child actors are not to be faulted in the slightest, there's some very promising performances from them, especially given they work through different accents and characters quite seamlessly. The writers appear to think that we'll simply be bowled over by children swearing, and don't bother to try and include any deeper reaching comedy; a shame since it seems these children are quite capable of it.In short, very impressive acting from such a young cast, ultimately let down by poor and very lazy writing. Here's to hoping they buck up their ideas, or that these endearing children get a chance to go on and star in something decent.
edwardhendryuk "School of Comedy" is E4's new comedy sketch show. Like the show "Beehive" that came before it, "School of Comedy" is different from the bulk of today's comedy for featuring a less diverse cast - in this case, kids.It's a good idea in theory, but in practice, it doesn't work - the reason being that not even the most competent young actor/comedians can carry a comedy show if it's written as poorly as this show is.The comedy in "The School of Comedy" is as bad as it is simple: Kids act like adults (wear moustaches, work in a courtroom etc.), while putting on exaggerated comedy accents (Yokel, Cockney and hilarious White South African) and swear - because often, kids swearing is the punchline in this comedy - you can tell by the canned laughter that seems to punctuate each naughty word.However, the performances the young actors give cannot be criticised too much, because they're only young. They haven't been in comedy too long. They act out many different accents and personalities required of a sketch based show - but at the end of the day, they are kids playing doctors/teachers etc. with squeaky young voices. The writers and producers on the other hand (unless they are also 14 years old) deserve no such sympathy, writing the lamest jokes and the weakest characters, and giving us a show that is just another one of those wretched sketch based comedies that will last one series, and be reborn 1 year later as another weak comedy.Needless to say, I didn't smile once through this first episode, and I can safely say I won't expect to be bellowing with laughter during any of the following episodes.