Midweek Mention... The Bad Education Movie
This midweek Bad Dads Film Review episode begins, naturally, with Reegs’ fresh haircut, the cost of beard sculpting, and a brief detour into barber-chair intimacy before Sidey reveals the week’s selection method: a hectic week, two shorter episodes, no proper theme, and a number-based Amazon Prime roulette that landed the Dads on The Bad Education Movie.
Sidey sets the table with a confession: he never watched the BBC Three sitcom, partly because he “genuinely” cannot get on with Jack Whitehall’s posh, fumbling toff persona. Reegs admits, with some shame, to having seen bits of the TV series and the movie before. Cris has only watched the end, and Dan arrives ready to query how this became a feature film in the first place.
The film itself is described as a 2015 feature-length send-off for Jack Whitehall’s BBC Three sitcom, following teacher Alfie Wickers and his class on a school trip that veers from Amsterdam chaos to Cornwall, the Eden Project, a kidnapped PTA chaperone, a militant Cornish liberation plot, fencing callbacks, helicopter rescue business, and repeated Jack Whitehall nudity gags.
The Dads walk through the set pieces: the Anne Frank museum mushroom freak-out, the stolen Anne Frank model, the classroom siege lesson, the infamous hamster/rectum gag, the Cornish strip club, the religious relic gag involving a foreskin and a pork scratching, the zip-line testicle close-up, and the final Braveheart-style confrontation with Iain Glen’s villain.
The central criticism is not that the jokes fail to set up and pay off — Sidey notes that they often do — but that the pay-offs simply are not funny. The episode repeatedly contrasts the film with The Brothers Grimsby, which the Dads had recently covered; compared with this, Grimsby is treated as almost nuanced. Sidey finds the film loud, juvenile, and exhausting, with “young people shouting at you” and very little that lands comedically.
This week the Bad Dads take a midweek spin of the Amazon Prime roulette wheel and land on The Bad Education Movie, the 2015 big-screen send-off for Jack Whitehall’s BBC Three sitcom. Sidey is not thrilled. Reegs has seen some of it before. Cris has only caught the ending. Dan is mostly wondering how all this happened.
What We Covered
- Amazon Prime roulette: With no planned theme and a hectic week, the Dads pick numbers, scroll through Prime, and end up with The Bad Education Movie.
- Sidey vs Jack Whitehall: Sidey clarifies that Jack Whitehall may be lovely in real life, but the posh, fumbling, “I’ve said a swear word” comic persona absolutely grates.
- The sitcom-to-film set-up: A BBC Three comedy becomes a feature-length send-off, following teacher Alfie Wickers and his suspiciously adult-looking class.
- Amsterdam chaos: Mushrooms, the Anne Frank museum, a stolen model, E.T. bicycle imagery, and an early sign of the film’s comic level.
- Classroom carnage: Harry Enfield appears, the PTA are unimpressed, and a hamster gag goes full Richard Gere.
- Cornwall instead of Vegas: The school trip ends up around the Eden Project rather than the intended big blow-out, with Cornish stereotypes and a fake liberation movement driving the plot.
- Running gags: Fencing, the unfinished C-L-A tattoo, the tourist helicopter, gentrification, Tarquin, and the Cornish Liberation Army all get set up and paid off — just not, in the Dads’ view, amusingly.
- Gross-out humour: The relic/foreskin/pork-scratching gag, the Cornish strip club, zip-lining nudity, and repeated close-ups of Jack Whitehall’s anatomy take the film firmly into loud juvenile territory.
- The cast: The Dads note a surprisingly large cast, including Harry Enfield, Iain Glen, Matthew Horne and Clarke Peters, while repeatedly asking why some of them are in this.
- The broader Whitehall question: The episode detours into Jack Whitehall’s mainstream TV appeal, his safe-bet presenting persona, American audiences, and Michael Whitehall’s industry background.
Key Quotes / Moments
- “There’s only so good that somebody can make you look.”
- “This was chosen in a sort of lottery-type fashion.”
- “I’m sure he’s very nice… but I don’t find him funny.”
- “This makes Brothers Grimsby look quite nuanced.”
- “All the jokes that they set up, they do pay off. They’re just not funny.”
- “Top five worst things I’ve watched for the pod.”
- “Strong avoid for me.”
Verdict
A strong avoid. Sidey finds the film loud, juvenile, exhausting and almost entirely unfunny, placing it among the worst things watched for the podcast. Dan agrees with a strong avoid, Reegs recognises the sitcom background but does not rescue it, and Cris’ “strong recommend?” is pure mischief.
We love to hear from our listeners! By which I mean we tolerate it. If it hasn't been completely destroyed yet you can usually find us on twitter @dads_film, on Facebook Bad Dads Film Review, on email at baddadsjsy@gmail.com or on our website baddadsfilm.com.
Until next time, we remain...
Bad Dads
Bad Education
Dan: Wh- where do you get your hair cut, Reece? 'Cause yours is looking sharp. Rudy's. Oh, right. I've been there before. Rudy's Haircut. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. At Knife and Fork Road.
Cris: Is it the lady there that cuts it- Classic ... the woman?
Reegs: It's not Emma. It's Patrick. He's really good. Ah.
Dan: He's cut my hair before. He's, he's cool.
Reegs: he's really cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he's a nice guy. I
Dan: like the barber. Y- you, and you, you make a, a booking there, don't you? So-
Reegs: And for me, like, getting your hair cut is quite a big deal, 'cause, like, obviously I don't want any other human to touch me at all- Mm ... in any way, shape, or form.
Cris: in any way, shape, or form. Except for me.
Reegs: And, and also there's only so good that somebody can make you look, So...
Dan: Well, I went-
Sidey: You're looking good
Dan: I won't go to... I won't queue. You know, I don't
Reegs: make an, an appointment though.
Dan: Yeah, well, then I've got to be somewhere at a certain time. No, I just tend to chance it, and when I'm walking past, nobody's in there, I'll go. But when I
Reegs: 42 quid though for hair and beard
Dan: for hair and beard ... 42 quid?
Sidey: Crumbs. They don't really do...
Dan: And beard. Yeah. So I get- You get your beard done?
Reegs: Yeah, course I do.
Sidey: do. Yeah. I used to get a separate, like, hour-long appointment, half hour hair, half hour beard. They don't really do it anymore. Yeah. They just do, do it all quickly
Reegs: together. He'll do all the
Dan: will sculpt your beard
Reegs: he'll do all of that if you want it. I don't really go for all that. But
Dan: he- But you have this time
Sidey: I like the whole towel, the whole proper thing. Yeah,
Reegs: that, and then he even forces me to have a lot of it.
Sidey: Against your will?
Reegs: no, but it's not
Dan: Pins you down. It's like
Cris: He just chains him to the chair ...
Dan: massage. it's not a barber chair. It's like a restraints
Cris: like the electric
Dan: It's like the electric chair.
Reegs: So he's, he's a cool guy.
Dan: Well, he's, he's he's certainly sorted you out. But he's, he's sculpted your beard this time as well. Every time. Yeah, every time? Yeah. Even when you don't have a beard? Yeah. Yeah, right. Okay.
Reegs: He does all my topiary. Oh,
Dan: wow. Okay. Do you just get,
Sidey: That segues-
Dan: It, oof ... very well- That's why we say it
Sidey: it ... into this week's midweek- Yeah ... episode. Sure. Which was chosen in a sort of lottery-type
Reegs: Yeah ... fashion. I propose we never do this again.
Sidey: Well, it's the luck of the draw, I guess. There's been a bit of a hectic week, so we're just doing two shorter episodes this week. Yeah. And we didn't have any theme or anything connecting them, so I asked you to just pick some numbers. Yeah. And then I scrolled those numbers on the Amazon Prime menu. Sounds scary. And we ended up with this, the Bad Education movie. Yeah. Now, this it's a 2015 movie, but it's a feature length sendoff for Jack Whitehall's BBC Three sitcom, Bad Education, which I didn't know was a thing. the- Part of the reason for that- ... BBC as well ... is because I- Amazingly just genuinely fucking hate Jack Whitehall.
Reegs: know you do, yeah.
Sidey: I'm sure he's very nice- Yeah ... and his family and friends probably like him, but I don't find him funny. There's... But I don't hate him, I just don't find him funny. I don't find that sort of posh- Fumbling toff ... posh... Oh, I've said a swear word. Yeah. Like, it just fucking grates on me, so I wasn't thrilled when this was what came up, but-
Reegs: was what came up. But- He reminds me a little bit of Max. Yeah, a little bit. Just a tiny little bit, just because of that toff- Yeah ... I went to boarding school, everyone was a fencer. Home Counties.
Sidey: the Home Counties.
Reegs: Yeah. The Ro- Royal Berkshire. Yeah. All that sort of stuff. He, he... Max was way cooler- Yeah ... but he moved with circles with those people. Tarquin. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly
Sidey: 'Cause there is a Tarquin in this. So the premise of this, I think I'm the only one who- Actually, this is- You've seen it before.
Reegs: I have actually seen a bit of the TV series, to my absolute shame. And I've seen the movie,
Sidey: So I watched this yesterday. My missus bailed out after three minutes. That might tell you all you need to know. He's- Directed it
Reegs: by, Si? Was it Martin Scorsese?
Sidey: No, I don't think... I think he was busy ... one of the Coen brothers? I think he was
Cris: it the Coen brothers? I think
Reegs: the Coen brothers? I think he was busy on- 'Cause I didn't see this for the pod and have done no research, so I'll g-
Dan: It must have been a big- shot
Sidey: I can see this
Dan: With someone-
Sidey: so I could be- He must have been
Reegs: let's
Cris: 2015, that's a long time ago. That is 11 years now. That's
Dan: somewhere with some pull if it's got Whitehall.
Reegs: I'm pretty sure it was ... That was Stephen's-
Sidey: that was Steven- Elliott Hegarty.
Reegs: Ah, of
Sidey: The
Dan: And he's also done-
Sidey: Other things maybe, or maybe he's done nothing- Options ... 'cause there was... there's nothing in here. Look, it's... the camera is pointing at the people who are in the film. Yeah. And I'm gonna tell you right out the gate, I thought this was fucking awful. Yeah. But I'm sure there are lots of people who worked really hard, and no one set out to make a bad movie. Yeah. Maybe it isn't a bad movie, I just didn't like it.
Reegs: Does it have some funny moments? No. I'm trying to think. There's a ... He's zip lining bollock naked. Is He...
Sidey: They repeat that gag. They repeat that gag later on when he needs to be rescued from the castle. So the premise, the whole premise of it is that he is a teacher. Yeah. And he's trying to make out that he's, like, a bit of a lad, and he's gonna take his class away. It's the end of their sixth form, I think. Yeah. Or their GCSEs. Do
Cris: call him by his name,
Sidey: GCSEs 'cause they're going to different college. Yeah. Do they call him by his name or just- They don't call him... Sometimes they call him sir, other times they just call him his name.
Cris: Right,
Reegs: I'm trying to think. The TV cast, there's like ... There's a very flamboyant homosexual. There's a slutty teenage
Sidey: They're best mates. There's
Reegs: Yeah, flamboyance. There's a, like a really nerdy fat kid. Yeah. A kid in a wheelchair.
Sidey: Yeah.
Reegs: What else have we got?
Cris: The ginger fringe. Lesbian bully. There's the ginger fringe, and the guy that keeps telling that he's wanking people off. I
Reegs: Chinese There's an Asian. There's, there's an A- Asian... I don't know. They don't really get into the sort of academia of it. sort of academia of it. No. this is the end of their GCSEs, and they want... he wants to take them away on a tear-up. The original plan was to go to Vegas. Yeah. But there is a trip... So it starts off with a trip where they go to Amsterdam. That's right. yeah. The Anne Frank museum.
Sidey: him with mushrooms- and he has a freak out. They use the kid in the wheelchair to push to the front of the queue, and they go to the... And then he starts, like, spinning out, and he ends up stealing the model of Anne Frank. Yeah. He pulls... He's wearing a hoodie, and he does it up like Elliot from E.T.- Yeah ... and then he
Reegs: tries to jump the canal.
Sidey: well, it's quite funny. He, he gets the Anne Frank, like, in the front of his bicycle. Yeah. And then, yeah, he does the whole E.T. thing, and he just crashes into the canal. Yeah. C anal. And so that's, like, the kind of level of humor. That's probably the, the high point in terms- Yeah ... of the humor. So the, the PTA then led by, I don't know their names, one of the kid in the class, it's his mother. She was in the thick of it-
Reegs: She's a real fierce matronly
Dan: yeah. No,
Reegs: yeah really hates the bad
Sidey: Yeah So the, one of the first times she appears, the, she is in a PTA meeting. She says, "Look, this guy, there's no way he's taken away again," blah, blah, blah. So Harry Enfield is fucking in it. Harry... They're like, "Look, let's go and see him in the classroom now. You'll see that everything's all right." And they're having a right fucking tear-up. They're doing... It's a history lesson, and they're doing a kind of s- siege battle thing where they've tore the classroom upside down. You've seen the class hamster. Bearing in mind, all of these people look the same age as Jack Whitehall. Yeah. There's no differential between-
Dan: I can... I, yeah ... the
Sidey: I could... Yeah ... them as classmates and him. Yeah. And as she walks in, the mum of this kid walks in to see how the class is getting on, the hamster goes into something which propels it
Reegs: Oh, yes
Sidey: con unit or something like that, and it goes between her
Reegs: up into her
Sidey: Massive gold. Yeah, full Richard Gere. Yeah. Yeah.
Dan: You think of, like, movies School of Rock- Yeah ... for example, where they've actually used, like, school-aged kids- Yeah, yeah ... to, to do it, and they've been brilliant. And they're... These kids, you couldn't really te- as I say, you couldn't really tell how much- Anyone looking- Some look- ... could've played the
Sidey: have played the teacher.
Dan: Yeah. Yeah. I thought, "Is that the love interest?" You go, "No, the teenage-" I mean, let's face- "... fucking girl." Like, you... Is it?
Reegs: I am going to bat for this, but the whole premise is that he's only slightly older than the people that he's teaching. Yeah. 'Cause he's just left- Well,
Dan: well, he, he is,
Sidey: they do, they are gonna go on a trip, but this time the trip is gonna be chaperoned by this lady. Yeah. We should figure out her name, 'cause she's great in,
Dan: in
Cris: thick of it Yeah.
Sidey: So they end up not going to Vegas. They go to the Eden Project.
Reegs: right, yeah ... right, yeah ... and it's just all really biff. They end up having her The Eden Project's great
Sidey: No, it's not what they had in mind though Yeah There's a difference. So they're, they g- they're down in Cornwall, and they end up having her kidnapped and put on a boat to France. I think sedated and put on a-
Reegs: boat. Yeah, but no, isn't there a... It's a bit like Bait that there's a kind of Cornish
Sidey: Scanlan, that's her, yeah.
Dan: things that get
Reegs: There's, like, gentrification, and the people of Cornwall are trying to declare... It's like-
Sidey: Well, there's a, there's a few things that get set up in, in it. He keeps banging on about how he used to do fencing. Yeah. He w- he wants to get a tattoo, and they're gonna tattoo him in class, and he only gets the C-L-A bit of the tattoo.
Reegs: That's got something to do with the end Glenn.
Sidey: it's the Cornish Liberation Army. That's So- what happens is when they get down there, they end up going to, like, some really lame Cornish strip club where the, the one of the strippers has got a wooden leg. Yeah. All this sort of stuff. So he's trying to send up all these Cornish stereotypes. But then they do then lean into this whole, you know, these fiercely, like, local proud
Reegs: Militant Cornish
Sidey: they wanna... They want their own independence,
Reegs: So the Cornish wing of the
Sidey: the IRA. Basically, yeah. There's other gags where they go to some religious site, and there's a, a foreskin on
Reegs: That's right ...
Sidey: he has to, ends up putting in his mouth. Yeah,
Reegs: and it gets replaced with a pork scratching? Fucking
Sidey: there's the zip lining bit you mentioned, Riggs, where his trousers drop and you see his dick. Yeah. And then a real close-up of his ball bag.
Reegs: Yeah. And I think the camera is just behind his testicles, isn't it? Yeah. As they go down the thing. It's quite a
Sidey: on it. 'Cause we watched- Grim- Brothers Grimsby last week, and this makes that look quite nuanced. That was kind of, you know, a send-up of those sort of spy things and whatever, and it wasn't great, but it was... I did laugh at it. There was precious little to laugh at here. And in the end, they, they really get caught up in this Cornish liber- liberation thing. Like, fucking Lester Freamon from The Wire appears, and you're like- Yeah. Is he a Cornish- ... why are you in this? No, but he's their... They... It's like the FBI get involved because of this the Cornish Liberation Army and They're planning to blow the place up. They blow up, That's the bit with Tarquin, but you're talking about the gentrification bit where- Yeah ... they, they have him blown up. They, they blow up his whole gaff. And in the end, it, comes down to Jack Whitehall facing off against Ian Glen's,
Reegs: character.
Sidey: Who has a Honestly, there's, there's quite a big cast actually. And they have... This is where his fencing prowess
Reegs: much an ensemble piece like our other movie
Dan: but he, he- Yeah ... he, he does a piece like, the end of Braveheart, doesn't he? Where you, they can take our f- Yeah ... village or land and fr- and it's, it's all just been done before much, much better. Even when it's been, the piss has been taken out of it. It's- They,
Sidey: they've done the thing about fencing, and he has the fight with the fencing, and you know he's gonna do the thing where he spins the, the foil and- Yeah ... disarms him, and then he, he's always like, he just pokes him. He's like, "Oh, yeah, that means I win." And and then there's been another running thing about the g- the other guy from school who's in Gavin & Stacey. Yeah. There's a lot of shit haircuts. He's got a d- appalling haircut in this. Well, I think that was on Yeah, but I didn't honestly... Like, it wasn't funny. It was just like, "Oh, why have they got hair like that?" He's been wanting to get on this tourist helicopter ride- Yeah ... the whole way, and that pays off because they appear to rescue him from the top of this turret where he has to just fling
Dan: onto the rope ladder. The rope ladder. Yeah. Jowas
Sidey: come down.
Reegs: Okay. Yeah.
Sidey: you see his dick. It's like- You see his dick
Reegs: All right. Okay.
Sidey: So all the jokes that they set up- they do pay off. They're just not funny- Yeah ... which is a problem. And it's really loud. There's just lots of, like, young people shouting at you all the time throughout it, and, you know, the gags
Dan: it meant for kids? I mean, with-
Reegs: It's amazing that it got through I think two TV series and
Sidey: a movie. It's BBC Three, though, and there was just a load of shite on there- Yeah ... I would say. This has got, you know, a good cast, and I have no doubt that a lot of people worked really hard to make something decent. It didn't land for me. It's, just as, as... I'm gonna say it. This is in the top five worst things I've watched for the pod
Reegs: Wow. There you
Sidey: I don't know if it'll take Slammin' Salmon's crown, but it's-
Reegs: But if you've got, if you really dislike Jack Whitehall, which you actively dislike him-
Dan: watched probably-
Reegs: that about him.
Sidey: that about him I don't, honestly don't understand the level of success, 'cause he's sort of BBC-ified. He'll- Yeah
Reegs: Yeah
Sidey: he'll do the vanilla stuff for the big, you know, corporates and whatever. Yeah. I see him, like, do the
Reegs: He does the travel stuff with his father and all that
Sidey: off. Can't they both die? just shit. Yeah. And there's other people who are really talented who don't get this level of success, and you just think, "What's that all about?" It just makes no sense to me. Yeah. Trash. I did not like this.
Reegs: Well, he's a nepo baby, isn't he? 'Cause his father was big in the industry as well. Oh, really? Yeah. Say no more, say
Sidey: really? Oh, say no more. Say no more. Did it make any money? Probably. Who knows?
Cris: What was his dad? W- what did he, what did he
Reegs: Michael Whitehall, he was a TV producer I think. Something like that.
Cris: He does sound quite fancy, his dad, when he speaks. He comes across quite, like, whatever. Yeah. I, I, I obviously haven't watched this. I watched only the end of it, and the, the, the helicopter and the fencing thing and all that. And I kind of agree with you. I've, I've never really understood ... The only, the only reason why I understand why he's been on the breakfast show, he's been on evening things, he's been on in, in presenting things. So he's one of them that because he doesn't say anything offensive, he doesn't really make a point of- It's safe bet. Yeah of, of- Yeah ... you know, getting people upse- he's not Ricky Gervais, right? He's not whoever you think is more poking the big
Sidey: Yeah. you get him on the chat shows, and all the Yanks love him 'cause they think that's what all fucking Brits sound like, and all that- Yeah ... bollocks.
Cris: So yeah. But would you say strong recommend? Strong recommend. Yeah.
Sidey: Yeah.
Reegs: Definitely.
Dan: It's a strong avoid for me
Cris: Yeah
