New comedy can teach us all a thing or two with lessons in and out of classroom

I always thought my classmates were a relatively tame bunch of teens, but looking back, we must have been extremely frustrating at times.

Relentless chatting, uncontrollable giggling and an inability to concentrate may have seemed harmless to us, but with the benefit of hindsight and a smidgen of maturity, I do feel a twinge of guilt.

The teachers’ screaming, feet-stamping and occasional crying were probably a sign we should have shut up and saved our gossip for breaktime. And that was even in lessons with the teachers we liked.

So the experience of students in the classic comedy Teechers is all too familiar.

The play is set in a modern comprehensive, where the Year 11 drama students’ decision to base their end-of-term play on the highs and many lows of their new drama teacher’s first two terms has disastrous consequences.

They sketch the teacher’s progress through two terms of unruly classes, cynical colleagues and obstructive caretakers. It’s meant to be a bit of fun, but the disillusioned tutor departs for the supposedly safer waters of a private school, leaving behind his students whose youthful irreverence gives way to despair.

Blackeyed Theatre Company’s production of John Godber’s comedy is fast-moving, inventive and entertaining.

The highly acclaimed company bring to life the play with an important message about education for the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’.

Director Adrian McDougall said: “I can promise audiences a brilliant evening’s entertainment, lots of laughs as well as one or two genuinely touching moments. Young or old, I think audiences will recognise some if not all the characters in the play from their own school days.”