Bad Education

Bad Education

Bad Education is shown on BBC 3 at 10pm on a Tuesday. It is also shown on BBC Iplayer, which is a website that you can watch shows that have been aired in the past week, it known as a away of 'catching up' on popular programs that you may have missed.

Bad Education is a show about a normal school with one teacher called Mr Wickers in particular who is not exactly your 'model' teacher. He has an attachment to his form group and sees them all as friends as appose to students, so does not act like a teacher. However this adds the comedy element to the program.

To begin with, the lighting reflects the mood of the program. Because it is a comedy the tone is set straight away by a brightly coloured school hallway. Mr Wickers (played by jack Whitehall) stands shrugging his shoulders when he realises it is time to go and teach students, acting more like an impatient student as appose to what his profession suggests. There are a lot of mid-shots used to show the unimpressed body expressions shown by Mr Wickers, as well as this there are close-ups that show the same sort of 'Cant be bothered' attitude in his facial expressions.

Non diegetic sound is used when changing scene. music that reflects the atmosphere or whatever just happened in the scene is played. For example, when mr Wickers takes a homemade drug, music from the 60's is played, the 1960's was time when a drug called LSD swept the nation, and the drug that the main character had take had similar effects. The music also fades in and out to give the viewer somewhat of a disorientated effect, similar to the drug and almost puts the viewer in his shoes. 

Editing also plays a key part in achieving the same effect. Some scenes fade in and out of focus, from a first person view of Alfie (Mr Wickers) to simulate the blurriness and inability to focus. This all adds to the comedy value, as all teachers are supposed to set examples for children, he clearly doesnt when he is supposed to be teaching children about drugs and keeping away from them, he creates his own to impress a woman.

Some camera angles also reflect this, the canted angle for example offers various disorientating affects on the viewer. Aswell as this, an extreme close-up on alfies's face shows how overly happy he is, as he is dribbling at the mouth, a teacher has to intervene and improvise saying 'fantastic acting'. Bad Education is clearly, a comedy.