Post by Dirty Epic on Apr 15, 2016 13:59:42 GMT
Felt it appropriate to review this four-part series of films scripted by David Leland and produced by Margaret Matheson from Central Television in 1983.
{Spoiler Alert - Click Here To Reveal}
Tales Out of School’s four parts show how education, schools, the curriculum and teaching disenfranchise the child by simply processing their behaviour and abilities to make them suitable as components in a workforce. This was at the same time Thatcherism eroded many of the old traditions of society and perhaps subconsciously created conditions that both pupils, teachers and others reject these state of affairs and (to the point of violence) demand changes in the way learning, knowledge, experience, convention and expected societal norms are passed down from adult to child.
Birth of a Nation
This focuses on life in a typical comprehensive school and the teachers, pupils and school leavers which make it up. The main character is Geoff Figg (Jim Broadbent) a world weary but caring teacher who deals with the underachiever’s in the school – including loud mouthed Sylve a early role for The Bill’s Lisa Geoghan. Mr Figg tries to get the best out of these pupils who are disinterested and seem to written off by a school run by the grandiose headmaster Mr Griff (Richard Butler) who has a rose tinted view of things not it’s reality it’s a failing comprehensive, failing it’s pupils. A further contrast is the hard-line approach of veteran teachers like Vic Griffiths (Robert Stephens) to the liberal approach of Figg and even the more laissez-faire approach of others like Tom Twentyman (Bruce Myers) and whether or not this gets results in the a backdrop of bullying, vandalism, disinterest and pride in the school both from pupils along with intimidation from a gang of unemployed ex-pupils who besiege it on a daily basis. Mr Figg tries to engage with his class who’ve been switched off from the school and channel their apathy, anger, energy and unruly behaviour into something more positive with engaging lessons that stretch the pupils to ask questions… even awkward ones. Despite this it does little to change the atmosphere within the school and after Mr Figg challenges the violence of the resident school bully Steven Harris (Tony Seaborne) momentarily Figg joins up with the harder edged Griffith’s in punishing Harris. However when Figg discovers Griffith’s’ ‘punishment book’ he reverts to type takes this to the local press as evidence that the school’s punishment policy isn’t working. Things come to a head when a chain of unrelated events create chaos in the school. The delinquent former pupils openly mock, lie and taunt Mr Griff about their current prospects since leaving school. Harris intent on revenge against Figg tries to throw an acid bottle he stole from the chemistry lab which rather than hitting Figg get’s Mr Griffith’s hospitalising him. But perhaps the most notable event is when the star ex-pupil Alison (Suzanna Hamilton) returns to meet with Mr Griff. Alison achieved brilliant results in her O-Levels but like the tearaway ex-pupils hanging around the school gates she is also unemployed and uncertain of which direction to take her future. After a patronising brush off from Mr Griff Alison breaks a window in the school which results in both the current and ex-pupils having a riot in the school in which the hopes, dreams and institutional credibility of the school seem futile and makes you think about where it will lead it’s current and future lost generation’s – something anyone who went to school’s like this can identify with immediately.
Birth of a Nation is excellent (for it’s time) social-realism television and IMO is almost as good as Made in Britain (see later) and is something which would simply not be made by British television these days. Like Alan Bleasdale’s work It’s both a black comedy and an acute observation of early 1980’s society/school system and is perhaps just as/more relevant these days with free market philosophies obsessed with league tables rather than improving the end result for those which use it. Interestingly it was directed by Mike Newell who went on to do perhaps the bland Four Weddings and a Funeral and Donnie Brasco which are about as far removed from this as you can get.
Flying into the Wind
This deals with whether children can be successfully educated outside the system. It begins in 1969 when parents Barry and Sally Wyatt (Derrick O’Connor/ Rynagh O'Grady) send their daughter Laura (Prudence Oliver) to school. Laura is literally traumatised by her school experience and seeing it, the teachers and her fellow pupils as threatening and unsympathetic she takes off from class one day and refuses to return to school creating a massive dilemma for her parents. We pick up the story at the present day where Laura has seemingly been successfully educated at home by Barry and Sally who are likewise doing the same for their son Michael (Adrian Wagstaff) who also assists his father in his boatyard. However the local education authority are concerned Michael isn’t receiving a proper education and take Barry and Sally to court to try and enforce a ruling that he’s sent to a proper secondary school – something he’s never done in his life. Despite showing evidence of Michael being educated and Laura’s evidence that home education worked for her the court rule Michael should be sent to a secondary school and the film ends with him attending school nervously for the first time and to a uncertain future in the sense of his social interactions with fellow pupils, learning and generally what he will get out of this educational environment. Apparently David Leland knew a family with a similar issue and used it as inspiration for Flying into the Wind.
R.H.I.N.O.
Written by David Leland R.H.I.N.O. is an acronym for Really Here in Name Only and the story takes up the life of a isolated overweight black teenage girl Angie (Deltha McLeod) at a London comprehensive. In a almost documentary style it shows Angie regularly truanting from school in order to look after her brother’s abandoned baby. Angie’s mother left long ago and has been pretty much disowned by her father. In order to make ends meet Angie regularly shoplifts in order to look after her brother, his baby and herself. The education system, social services and others have either written her off or seem clueless as to what to do with her and with perhaps inevitable results she ends up in an approved school after she is caught shoplifting. Perhaps a bit dated now R.H.I.N.O. could be quite pertinent to many within London’s urban environments of the 1980’s/90’s and in consideration of this it’s acting and dialogue has an almost realistic feel to it.
Made in Britain
Directed by the late Alan Clarke (Scum, The Firm, Rita, Sue and Bob Too' as well as 'Play For Today' films) and the most well known, violent and grimmest of the ‘tales’ Made in Britain focuses upon 16-year old south London skinhead Trevor (Tim Roth). It begins with Trevor at a magistrates court after smashing the windows of an Asian-immigrant family. Trevor’s long abandoned school, been disowned by his family and has become involved with the skinhead ‘Oi’ movement of late 1970’s/early 80’s. Unapologetic/unashamed when a magistrate points out his record – truancy, shoplifting, racism and other crimes (shoplifting from Harrods) he’s referred by his probation officer Harry Parker (best known as the Bill’s Sgt Cryer, Eric Richard) for assessment at a children’s home before sentencing. Despite abandoning school/education Trevor is bright and could do well… if he wanted to. However he’s on a downward spiral of his own making and has an angry front to everyone around him. Whilst at the home he strikes up a surprisingly uneasy friendship his black youth roommate Errol (Terry Richards) who he shows how to steal cars and gradually (perhaps mischievously) steers towards a path of trouble. Trevor is also quick to challenge the homes rules. The first thing he does is coerce a house parent (Sharon Courtney) to give him money to visit the Job Centre. Trevor has no intention of finding a job and after antagonising job seekers (including Lock Stock’s Steve Sweeney) he confronts a clerk (Jean Marlow). After being told others are in front of him and to put the job cards back on the displays Trevor intimidatingly says he’ll ‘come back tomorrow’ and leaves only to find a paving slab on the street that he hurls this through the Job Centre window. Meanwhile he buys some PVA glue and goes ‘huffing’ with Errol. Whilst under the influence Errol challenges Trevor to steal a car and he gets into a modern Ford Granada. Starting the car up Trevor orders Errol out as he has to ‘see some mates’, presumably racist skinheads like him. Meanwhile at the home one of it’s key workers Peter Clive (Bill Stewart) arrives on his moped. He sees Trevor eating a burger in the Granada then getting out of the car. He asks Trevor to take the car back to which he’s gets dumb innocence but streetwise Clive knows Trevor nicked it and orders him to do this. Trevor says he’ll get rid of it but wont take it back. When Trevor returns to the home he wants lunch but has missed it. When one of the house masters rather foolishly asks Trevor ‘do you mind’ and that the dining room is closed Trevor becomes violent and tries to break the kitchen door down. The chef (Jim Dunk) tries and fails to confront Trevor and is attacked by Trevor. It requires a number of the home’s staff to incapacitate and remove Trevor from the dining room. After cooling off Trevor is visited by the homes superintendent (Geoffrey Hutchings) who points out the facts of life as to why he’s ended up there and the inevitable result of being a prisoner and ex-con if he continues on this path. Despite some riling Trevor (kind of) listens to what he has to say but it’s not going to have an affect on where he goes from here. When Clive and another member the home’s staff Barry Giller (Sean Chapman) try to reinforce this with Trevor it again riles him up and swearingly he has distain for what they and the ‘system’ want him to be and won’t sign a behavioural contract. Clive then offers Trevor the chance of a banger race drive if he behaves himself. It calms him down and briefly he toes the line. Trevor is doing well in the race and enjoying it but his Escort dies on the track and he takes this badly. He steals Clive’s keys for the home and the Transit van. Trevor wakes up Errol and they break into the office and find their files. As Errol can’t properly read Trevor looks over his file and the recommendation Errol’s mothers disowned him and he’s not going back to a family environment. Trevor coerces Errol to defecate on them before stealing the Transit van. They call at the home of Mr Shanawaz whom Trevor had thrown bricks through before and both of them throw bricks through the windows of his and other houses in his road shouting racist remarks whilst they go. After driving around in the Transit Trevor crashes it into police cars parked outside a station. Errol’s asleep in the van and Trevor places the home’s keys in his lap and leaves him in the van for arrest by the police. Trevor then strips to his trousers and goes for a walk around south London and the Blackwall tunnel – antagonising drivers who beep at him, and then searches out his PO Harry. Turning up at his door and antagonising his neighbours Harry is furious with Trevor as he’s about to go on holiday with his family. When Trevor explains what he’s been up to Harry shows no mercy and turns him in. Whilst in police cells Trevor remains antagonistic. He repeatedly uses a cell buzzer and winds up the officers. When one officer who knows Trevor well PC Anson (Christopher Fulford) is pushed too far he baton charges Trevor and threatens to fit him up with every unsolved car theft in the area when he is released from Borstal. The film ends here but it was originally intended to end with Trevor in Borstal and still seemingly at odds with the system, its institutions and authority figures.
From its explosive beginning to The Exploited’s ‘UK82’ Made in Britain packs a punch and is a reminder of how things (for some) were in early 80’s Britain. Did Thatcher’s policies create the ingredients (unemployment, riots, hopelessness etc.) and what’s the point attitudes of youth’s like Trevor? That debate goes beyond things here but Trevor is a very troubled man with no prospects and despite his intelligence he’s hellbent on descending into a spiral which will see him in confrontation with the police, authority and the establishment. Tim Roth is brilliant and terrifying as Trevor and he pulls off the architype anti-social individual you’d cross the road from and not make eye contact with. Made in Britain makes you think and question what made Trevor the anti-social, racist, thug he is. Was it his family/rebelling from family? Always inside him? Psychological? Or did a outside influence (like the British Movement etc.) shape his views, actions and prejudices to the point his life only revolves around anger, hatred, defiance of authority, glue sniffing, theft, vandalism and self-destruction? For decades there’s been real life Trevor’s which the system simply can’t deal with/handle. Should they be punished or rehabilitated? Debateable and what works for one doesn’t work for another but taking Trevor on face value I honestly think whatever approach wouldn’t have worked with him and at the time he’d have remained with his authority hating attitudes. That’s not to say a few years down the line he may have wised up and turned his life around and the final scene in the police station perhaps points to him beginning to realise the reality of his situation and his war is something he won’t win. But he’ll find a lot of pain and hurt before getting there. It would be interesting to see how Trevor turned out 20-30 years down the line. He could as easily have become one of the social workers he detested as much as a career criminal many 1980’s tearaways ended up becoming. The subject matter, racism, language and violence may not be everyone’s cup of tea – Mary Whitehouse and her ilk certainly didn’t but it’s one of the best examples of the almost documentary real life drama Alan Clarke was a master at putting together. As much as Shane Meadows tries and fails to emulate this with his ‘This is England’ work this is the real deal and the perfect snapshot of the Britain (for some) at that time.
Overall I’d fully recommend ‘Tales out of School’ to everyone on this forum. Yes by a country mile Made in Britain and less so Birth of a Nation are the best of this quartet and Flying into the Wind and R.H.I.N.O. do lose their way at times. But overall they do put together a powerful argument (at that time) of where the education and social welfare of young people in Britain is (was) heading and makes you question whether it should be heading in this or another direction. Hard to think ITV (Central) made such gritty drama verging on docu-realism when you compare it with the current state ITV is in now and even the weaker of this set blow away anything British television is offering now. ‘Tales out of School’ are what television dramas should be, engaging and thoroughly entertaining. It deservedly received much acclaim when they were first televised and they still hold up well today. Thank you risk takers like David Leland, Margaret Matheson and the late Alan Clarke for sticking to their guns and putting together things like this.
Tales Out of School’s four parts show how education, schools, the curriculum and teaching disenfranchise the child by simply processing their behaviour and abilities to make them suitable as components in a workforce. This was at the same time Thatcherism eroded many of the old traditions of society and perhaps subconsciously created conditions that both pupils, teachers and others reject these state of affairs and (to the point of violence) demand changes in the way learning, knowledge, experience, convention and expected societal norms are passed down from adult to child.
Birth of a Nation
This focuses on life in a typical comprehensive school and the teachers, pupils and school leavers which make it up. The main character is Geoff Figg (Jim Broadbent) a world weary but caring teacher who deals with the underachiever’s in the school – including loud mouthed Sylve a early role for The Bill’s Lisa Geoghan. Mr Figg tries to get the best out of these pupils who are disinterested and seem to written off by a school run by the grandiose headmaster Mr Griff (Richard Butler) who has a rose tinted view of things not it’s reality it’s a failing comprehensive, failing it’s pupils. A further contrast is the hard-line approach of veteran teachers like Vic Griffiths (Robert Stephens) to the liberal approach of Figg and even the more laissez-faire approach of others like Tom Twentyman (Bruce Myers) and whether or not this gets results in the a backdrop of bullying, vandalism, disinterest and pride in the school both from pupils along with intimidation from a gang of unemployed ex-pupils who besiege it on a daily basis. Mr Figg tries to engage with his class who’ve been switched off from the school and channel their apathy, anger, energy and unruly behaviour into something more positive with engaging lessons that stretch the pupils to ask questions… even awkward ones. Despite this it does little to change the atmosphere within the school and after Mr Figg challenges the violence of the resident school bully Steven Harris (Tony Seaborne) momentarily Figg joins up with the harder edged Griffith’s in punishing Harris. However when Figg discovers Griffith’s’ ‘punishment book’ he reverts to type takes this to the local press as evidence that the school’s punishment policy isn’t working. Things come to a head when a chain of unrelated events create chaos in the school. The delinquent former pupils openly mock, lie and taunt Mr Griff about their current prospects since leaving school. Harris intent on revenge against Figg tries to throw an acid bottle he stole from the chemistry lab which rather than hitting Figg get’s Mr Griffith’s hospitalising him. But perhaps the most notable event is when the star ex-pupil Alison (Suzanna Hamilton) returns to meet with Mr Griff. Alison achieved brilliant results in her O-Levels but like the tearaway ex-pupils hanging around the school gates she is also unemployed and uncertain of which direction to take her future. After a patronising brush off from Mr Griff Alison breaks a window in the school which results in both the current and ex-pupils having a riot in the school in which the hopes, dreams and institutional credibility of the school seem futile and makes you think about where it will lead it’s current and future lost generation’s – something anyone who went to school’s like this can identify with immediately.
Birth of a Nation is excellent (for it’s time) social-realism television and IMO is almost as good as Made in Britain (see later) and is something which would simply not be made by British television these days. Like Alan Bleasdale’s work It’s both a black comedy and an acute observation of early 1980’s society/school system and is perhaps just as/more relevant these days with free market philosophies obsessed with league tables rather than improving the end result for those which use it. Interestingly it was directed by Mike Newell who went on to do perhaps the bland Four Weddings and a Funeral and Donnie Brasco which are about as far removed from this as you can get.
Flying into the Wind
This deals with whether children can be successfully educated outside the system. It begins in 1969 when parents Barry and Sally Wyatt (Derrick O’Connor/ Rynagh O'Grady) send their daughter Laura (Prudence Oliver) to school. Laura is literally traumatised by her school experience and seeing it, the teachers and her fellow pupils as threatening and unsympathetic she takes off from class one day and refuses to return to school creating a massive dilemma for her parents. We pick up the story at the present day where Laura has seemingly been successfully educated at home by Barry and Sally who are likewise doing the same for their son Michael (Adrian Wagstaff) who also assists his father in his boatyard. However the local education authority are concerned Michael isn’t receiving a proper education and take Barry and Sally to court to try and enforce a ruling that he’s sent to a proper secondary school – something he’s never done in his life. Despite showing evidence of Michael being educated and Laura’s evidence that home education worked for her the court rule Michael should be sent to a secondary school and the film ends with him attending school nervously for the first time and to a uncertain future in the sense of his social interactions with fellow pupils, learning and generally what he will get out of this educational environment. Apparently David Leland knew a family with a similar issue and used it as inspiration for Flying into the Wind.
R.H.I.N.O.
Written by David Leland R.H.I.N.O. is an acronym for Really Here in Name Only and the story takes up the life of a isolated overweight black teenage girl Angie (Deltha McLeod) at a London comprehensive. In a almost documentary style it shows Angie regularly truanting from school in order to look after her brother’s abandoned baby. Angie’s mother left long ago and has been pretty much disowned by her father. In order to make ends meet Angie regularly shoplifts in order to look after her brother, his baby and herself. The education system, social services and others have either written her off or seem clueless as to what to do with her and with perhaps inevitable results she ends up in an approved school after she is caught shoplifting. Perhaps a bit dated now R.H.I.N.O. could be quite pertinent to many within London’s urban environments of the 1980’s/90’s and in consideration of this it’s acting and dialogue has an almost realistic feel to it.
Made in Britain
Directed by the late Alan Clarke (Scum, The Firm, Rita, Sue and Bob Too' as well as 'Play For Today' films) and the most well known, violent and grimmest of the ‘tales’ Made in Britain focuses upon 16-year old south London skinhead Trevor (Tim Roth). It begins with Trevor at a magistrates court after smashing the windows of an Asian-immigrant family. Trevor’s long abandoned school, been disowned by his family and has become involved with the skinhead ‘Oi’ movement of late 1970’s/early 80’s. Unapologetic/unashamed when a magistrate points out his record – truancy, shoplifting, racism and other crimes (shoplifting from Harrods) he’s referred by his probation officer Harry Parker (best known as the Bill’s Sgt Cryer, Eric Richard) for assessment at a children’s home before sentencing. Despite abandoning school/education Trevor is bright and could do well… if he wanted to. However he’s on a downward spiral of his own making and has an angry front to everyone around him. Whilst at the home he strikes up a surprisingly uneasy friendship his black youth roommate Errol (Terry Richards) who he shows how to steal cars and gradually (perhaps mischievously) steers towards a path of trouble. Trevor is also quick to challenge the homes rules. The first thing he does is coerce a house parent (Sharon Courtney) to give him money to visit the Job Centre. Trevor has no intention of finding a job and after antagonising job seekers (including Lock Stock’s Steve Sweeney) he confronts a clerk (Jean Marlow). After being told others are in front of him and to put the job cards back on the displays Trevor intimidatingly says he’ll ‘come back tomorrow’ and leaves only to find a paving slab on the street that he hurls this through the Job Centre window. Meanwhile he buys some PVA glue and goes ‘huffing’ with Errol. Whilst under the influence Errol challenges Trevor to steal a car and he gets into a modern Ford Granada. Starting the car up Trevor orders Errol out as he has to ‘see some mates’, presumably racist skinheads like him. Meanwhile at the home one of it’s key workers Peter Clive (Bill Stewart) arrives on his moped. He sees Trevor eating a burger in the Granada then getting out of the car. He asks Trevor to take the car back to which he’s gets dumb innocence but streetwise Clive knows Trevor nicked it and orders him to do this. Trevor says he’ll get rid of it but wont take it back. When Trevor returns to the home he wants lunch but has missed it. When one of the house masters rather foolishly asks Trevor ‘do you mind’ and that the dining room is closed Trevor becomes violent and tries to break the kitchen door down. The chef (Jim Dunk) tries and fails to confront Trevor and is attacked by Trevor. It requires a number of the home’s staff to incapacitate and remove Trevor from the dining room. After cooling off Trevor is visited by the homes superintendent (Geoffrey Hutchings) who points out the facts of life as to why he’s ended up there and the inevitable result of being a prisoner and ex-con if he continues on this path. Despite some riling Trevor (kind of) listens to what he has to say but it’s not going to have an affect on where he goes from here. When Clive and another member the home’s staff Barry Giller (Sean Chapman) try to reinforce this with Trevor it again riles him up and swearingly he has distain for what they and the ‘system’ want him to be and won’t sign a behavioural contract. Clive then offers Trevor the chance of a banger race drive if he behaves himself. It calms him down and briefly he toes the line. Trevor is doing well in the race and enjoying it but his Escort dies on the track and he takes this badly. He steals Clive’s keys for the home and the Transit van. Trevor wakes up Errol and they break into the office and find their files. As Errol can’t properly read Trevor looks over his file and the recommendation Errol’s mothers disowned him and he’s not going back to a family environment. Trevor coerces Errol to defecate on them before stealing the Transit van. They call at the home of Mr Shanawaz whom Trevor had thrown bricks through before and both of them throw bricks through the windows of his and other houses in his road shouting racist remarks whilst they go. After driving around in the Transit Trevor crashes it into police cars parked outside a station. Errol’s asleep in the van and Trevor places the home’s keys in his lap and leaves him in the van for arrest by the police. Trevor then strips to his trousers and goes for a walk around south London and the Blackwall tunnel – antagonising drivers who beep at him, and then searches out his PO Harry. Turning up at his door and antagonising his neighbours Harry is furious with Trevor as he’s about to go on holiday with his family. When Trevor explains what he’s been up to Harry shows no mercy and turns him in. Whilst in police cells Trevor remains antagonistic. He repeatedly uses a cell buzzer and winds up the officers. When one officer who knows Trevor well PC Anson (Christopher Fulford) is pushed too far he baton charges Trevor and threatens to fit him up with every unsolved car theft in the area when he is released from Borstal. The film ends here but it was originally intended to end with Trevor in Borstal and still seemingly at odds with the system, its institutions and authority figures.
From its explosive beginning to The Exploited’s ‘UK82’ Made in Britain packs a punch and is a reminder of how things (for some) were in early 80’s Britain. Did Thatcher’s policies create the ingredients (unemployment, riots, hopelessness etc.) and what’s the point attitudes of youth’s like Trevor? That debate goes beyond things here but Trevor is a very troubled man with no prospects and despite his intelligence he’s hellbent on descending into a spiral which will see him in confrontation with the police, authority and the establishment. Tim Roth is brilliant and terrifying as Trevor and he pulls off the architype anti-social individual you’d cross the road from and not make eye contact with. Made in Britain makes you think and question what made Trevor the anti-social, racist, thug he is. Was it his family/rebelling from family? Always inside him? Psychological? Or did a outside influence (like the British Movement etc.) shape his views, actions and prejudices to the point his life only revolves around anger, hatred, defiance of authority, glue sniffing, theft, vandalism and self-destruction? For decades there’s been real life Trevor’s which the system simply can’t deal with/handle. Should they be punished or rehabilitated? Debateable and what works for one doesn’t work for another but taking Trevor on face value I honestly think whatever approach wouldn’t have worked with him and at the time he’d have remained with his authority hating attitudes. That’s not to say a few years down the line he may have wised up and turned his life around and the final scene in the police station perhaps points to him beginning to realise the reality of his situation and his war is something he won’t win. But he’ll find a lot of pain and hurt before getting there. It would be interesting to see how Trevor turned out 20-30 years down the line. He could as easily have become one of the social workers he detested as much as a career criminal many 1980’s tearaways ended up becoming. The subject matter, racism, language and violence may not be everyone’s cup of tea – Mary Whitehouse and her ilk certainly didn’t but it’s one of the best examples of the almost documentary real life drama Alan Clarke was a master at putting together. As much as Shane Meadows tries and fails to emulate this with his ‘This is England’ work this is the real deal and the perfect snapshot of the Britain (for some) at that time.
Overall I’d fully recommend ‘Tales out of School’ to everyone on this forum. Yes by a country mile Made in Britain and less so Birth of a Nation are the best of this quartet and Flying into the Wind and R.H.I.N.O. do lose their way at times. But overall they do put together a powerful argument (at that time) of where the education and social welfare of young people in Britain is (was) heading and makes you question whether it should be heading in this or another direction. Hard to think ITV (Central) made such gritty drama verging on docu-realism when you compare it with the current state ITV is in now and even the weaker of this set blow away anything British television is offering now. ‘Tales out of School’ are what television dramas should be, engaging and thoroughly entertaining. It deservedly received much acclaim when they were first televised and they still hold up well today. Thank you risk takers like David Leland, Margaret Matheson and the late Alan Clarke for sticking to their guns and putting together things like this.
