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Chalk (TV series)
Encyclopedia
Chalk is a British television
sitcom set in a comprehensive school
named Galfast High. Two series, both written by Steven Moffat
, were broadcast on BBC1
in 1997. Like Moffat's earlier sitcom Joking Apart
, Chalk was produced by Andre Ptaszynski
for Pola Jones.
The series focuses upon deputy headteacher Eric Slatt (David Bamber
), permanently stressed over the chaos he creates both by himself and some of his eccentric staff. His wife Janet (Geraldine Fitzgerald
) and new English teacher Suzy Travis (Nicola Walker
) attempt to help him solve the problems.
Because of the very good reaction of the studio audience, a second series was commissioned before the first had been broadcast. However, journalists were critical of the show, highlighting stylistic similarities to Fawlty Towers
. Some members of the teaching profession and its unions objected to the negative representation of teachers and the comprehensive system. The second series did not receive a stable broadcast slot, with many episodes aired after 10pm. The first series was released on DVD in December 2008.
to write the BAFTA-award winning show Press Gang
. However, its high cost and changes in the executive structure at Central Independent Television
meant that the show might not be recommissioned after its second series. As the writer wondered what to do next and was worried about future employment, Bob Spiers
, Press Gangs primary director, suggested that he meet with producer Andre Ptaszynski
to discuss writing a sitcom. Inspired by his experience in education (in addition to his own former career, his father was a headteacher), the writer's initial proposal was similar to what would become Chalk. However, Ptaszynski realised that Moffat was talking more passionately at the meeting at the Groucho Club
about his impending divorce and suggested that he write about that instead. That idea became Joking Apart
, which received low audience figures but a high rating on the Appreciation Index
. In an interview with The Herald
, Moffat reflected on the nature of writing from experience: "I don't think you have an alternative to writing about what you know. You've no life experience to go on other than your own. Even if you're writing something you think is entirely remote from you - Star Trek
, for instance - you'll find the finished result is actually very close to your own experience. That's not a conscious decision a writer makes - it's an inevitability."
After the second series of Joking Apart had been transmitted, Ptaszynski revived Moffat's original idea about a sitcom set in a school. In an article for The Guardian
newspaper, writer and comedian Richard Herring
observed that Moffat has not used the show "as a soapbox from which to satirise the government’s educational policy, preferring to concentrate on being funny ... yet beneath it all is a much more broadly satirical swipe at the implicit pointlessness of the way we are educated." For this article, Moffat told Herring:
Moffat discussed similar institutional and political issues with The Independent:
The Independent reported that Moffat "stresses that Chalk is a sitcom, not some banner-waving, agitprop pamphlet", but is still "passionate about education". Moffat criticises "the[ Conservative
] government talk about the specially talented needing more education, but that's absurd, the equivalent of hospitals for the healthy." Moffat expected that teachers would find the show funny because it "has certain notes of accuracy", recognising familiar myths such as the dead teacher and teachers' contempt for their pupils. Moffat continued to say that teachers would "also recognise the pathological preference for science over arts and all that league-table shit. An official teaching organisation couldn't say, 'It's a very faithful portrayal,' but I hope they'd say, 'It's a comedy series. Why take it seriously?' You couldn't claim it is the most flattering series, but, there again, people continued to stay at hotels after Fawlty Towers."
As with Joking Apart, Ptaszynski produced Chalk for independent production company Pola Jones. The positive reaction of the studio audience during recording of the first series in 1996 propelled executives to commission a second set of six episodes before the first batch had aired.
All of the location shots for Chalk were filmed at the beginning of the production block. Acland Burghley School
, in the Tufnell Park
area of Camden
, London
, provided the exterior of the fictional Galfast High. The cast recall that it was difficult to perform comedy on location without a studio audience to gauge the reception and success of the jokes. Another school near Wembley
was used for large interior shots, such as the school hall featured in the episode "The Inspection". Rehearsals took place in BBC premises in Acton
, west London
, colloquially known by those in the industry as the "Acton Hilton". David Bamber, his colleagues note, knew the script at the beginning of rehearsals and never dropped a line. The cast recall that director Juliet May
provided a calm working environment; rather than losing her temper when things went wrong, she instead focussed everyone's mind on how to solve the problem.
After the exterior shots had been filmed, the episodes were recorded at BBC Television Centre
in London. Most of the episodes were recorded in studios three or four, but occasionally the larger studio eight was used. After a week's rehearsals, the episodes were filmed on Sundays. The cast and crew would have a camera rehearsal followed by a dress run. After a supper, the cast were introduced to the studio audience.
BBC executives insisted that the title be changed as they felt that "Chalk" did not stand out in the schedules. They were also concerned that the title might be somewhat anachronistic because schools were beginning to use whiteboard
s rather than chalkboard
s. Many people, including the actors, attempted to think of alternatives, but instead reverted back to "Chalk".
Funding was running low towards the end of filming the first series. Moffat contrived an episode, "The Staff Meeting", where all of the main cast would be locked in the staff room to avoid paying for any guest actors. To reduce expenditure further, crew members were enlisted to provide the voices for the television news report at the end of the episode: producer Andre Ptaszynski played the broadcast journalist, whilst second assistant director Sarah Daman voiced the protesting student Gail Bennett. When a guest actor delivered an inadequate performance of the psychiatric doctor at the end of "The Inspection", Moffat coached assistant director Stacey Adair to perform the line. However, professional actor C.J. Allen lived near to the location and he was enlisted to deliver the line instead.
The expense and restrictions placed upon child actors limited the number of pupils that could be featured. The non-speaking extras had to be licensed, a process that took four weeks, providing difficulties for assistant director Stacey Adair. The episode "Both Called Eric" features Antony Costa
as one of the pupils, one of his earliest TV roles before going on to appear in Grange Hill
and in the boy band Blue
.
Galfast High. It begins with the arrival of the young new English teacher Suzie Travis (Nicola Walker
). She immediately encounters the chaos of the school, a chaos enhanced by the manic Deputy Head Eric Slatt (David Bamber
). The Guardian retrospectively commented that the show's "best episodes of ... manouevred their unwitting participants towards a climax of terrible sexual humiliation or violence."
Moffat integrated many references
to secondary characters and locations from his previous BAFTA winning show Press Gang into Chalk. For instance, the Chalk character Eric Slatt refers to his neighbouring school Norbridge High, run by Mr Sullivan: these were the names of the school and deputy headmaster in Press Gang. The scene where Slatt is being given instructions by wire is taken from the unfilmed Press Gang movie Dead Line. The pornographic video Lesbian Spank Inferno, owned by Dan McGill in the final episode, is later referenced in the Coupling
episode "Inferno". In an interview with The New York Times
, Moffat admitted that the video is inspired by his then-new partner, Sue Vertue
, finding a similar video in their VCR.
) is the deputy headmaster of Galfast High, who seems to "deepen the many crises that face the school (most of Slatt’s own making)". Jeff Evans, writing in the The Penguin TV Companion, observed that "Slatt is certainly keen, but regrettably he is also unbalanced, tactless, clumsy, snobby, sarcastic, at times pointlessly aggressive and always prone to appalling errors of judgment (an academic version of Basil Fawlty
, it was widely noted)". The Independent
commented: "Chalk is in the idiom of sadistic farce: disaster begets catastrophe begets apocalypse, and they all engulf Slatt. There are inevitable echoes of other sitcom characters - a dash of Basil Fawlty's unquenchable apoplexy, a slice of Gordon Brittas
's purblind monomania - but Slatt's entanglements are caused by his own cocktail of failings." Nicola Walker commented that viewers sympathise with Slatt because he is in charge of a bunch of lunatics. Moffat told The Herald that Slatt was inspired by a real person:
Ptaszynski had attempted to persuade his friend Angus Deayton
, who wanted to move into more acting roles away from Have I Got News for You
, to play Slatt. The producer reflects that Deayton would have brought a more "sardonic" element to the character. The cast regularly teased David Bamber during rehearsals, speculating upon how Deayton might have performed a particular line or sequence.
Janet Slatt (Geraldine Fitzgerald
) is Eric's wife and the school's secretary. She has an antagonistic relationship with Eric, with each regularly the butt of the other's jokes. For instance, Eric suggests one morning that she had not shaved, and that she should rest her hind legs.
Suzy Travis (Nicola Walker
) is a new English teacher who arrives at the school in the first episode. The press described Suzy as "the voice of sanity at Galfast High and the thorn in Slatt's side."
Amanda Trippley (Amanda Boxer
) is the neurotic music teacher. Throughout the series, she invents her pupils to prevent her department being closed, uses the school's telephone network to surf the internet about Star Trek
, and demands the return of a musical instrument from a former pupil now on death row
.
Dan McGill (Martin Ball
) is a young teacher who instantly develops a crush on Suzy when she arrives at the school, and attempts to date her throughout the series. The character is given most prominence in "The Staff Meeting" episode, which was written in order to save money by not having any guest actors. In this episode it is revealed that Dan has agreed to teach several subjects in order to keep his job. Suzy is dismayed to find that he invented an entire language when he became a foreign languages teacher, and then invented its country (Estranzia) when made a Geography teacher. After Ball's performance in that episode, Moffat promised him that he would not underwrite him in the second series.
Mr Carkdale (John Grillo
), the head of English, very rarely utters anything but expletives. Struggling to find a rationale for his character, Grillo paced up and down a rehearsal room carrying a brown briefcase, which he remembers all of his own teachers carrying around, and shouting profanities.
Mr Richard Nixon (John Wells
) was the headteacher in the first series. Evans observes that he "shows precious little leadership", and the running of the school seems to fall to Slatt. Wells was too ill to participate in the second series, and died a year after its transmission.
Mr J.F. Kennedy (Duncan Preston
) replaced Mr Nixon as the head in the second series. Like Nixon, Mr Kennedy takes a back-seat in the developments. In the final episode he reads a letter from the former head, which inadvertently serves to show how their characters are identical.
Jason Cockfoster (Damien Matthews) is a young religious education
teacher. He arrives at the school in the first series episode "Both Called Eric", and appears more regularly in the second series. Suzy is immediately attracted to him, making Dan McGill so jealous that he tells the pupils that he is Satan
. The character was a deliberate attempt to add some sex appeal to the show.
summarised, "widely disliked". The BBC's publicity department compared Chalk to Fawlty Towers in the publicity materials. Critics, though, took exception to a new show being compared so such a renowned and respected programme. The cast point out that Fawlty Towers and Chalk are completely different shows, while Nicola Walker says that the comparison is like being asked to be "compared to a comedy God". Writing for the BBC Guide to Comedy
, Mark Lewisohn
observes that the critical reception was mixed, with "its detractors pointing out that Eric Slatt was a carbon copy of John Cleese
's Basil Fawlty [and] its supporters praising its non-PC, off-the-wall approach and the breathlessly paced plots that delivered moments of high farce." Lewisohn also comments that while some elements of the show resemble Please Sir!
, "Chalk more closely resembled the ill-fated Hardwicke House
with its concentration on the teachers rather than the pupils, dark themes and overall depiction of the teachers as ... nuts." Tom Lappin for Scotland on Sunday
derided the combination of Chris Barrie
's Gordon Brittas and Cleese's Basil Fawlty.
The first four episodes were transmitted at 21:30, but the final two episodes of the second series were moved to 22:20. The second series received an unstable timeslot, being replaced in its more mainstream slot by Men Behaving Badly
. Commenting on the second series, the Glasgow Herald said, "the manic depute head of Galfast High, Eric Slatt, is looking more and more like Basil Fawlty on a bad day. So are those of us who remain glued to it in ghoulish fascination to see if it can get any worse." Tabloid newspaper The Mirror published a damming review of the show's second series opener:
In an interview in the early 2000s, Moffat refused to even mention Chalk, joking that he might get attacked in the street. The first series received criticism from some teachers and teaching unions, who criticised the representation of their professions. Letters were printed in specialist publications such as the Education Guardian
. The Association of Teachers and Lecturers
labelled Chalk as "perverse" and "vapid", and its leader
called upon the show to be axed. Teachers, according to the Daily Record, complained that the show portrayed teachers as "mentally unstable", and deterred people from entering the profession. John Grillo, who played Mr Carkdale, recalls that he was appearing in a West End
play at the time he was auditioning for the role; a fellow actor in the play was meant to be auditioning for Chalk but, having been a deputy head teacher earlier in his career, was so disgusted by the material that he refused to attend. The unions' derision actually inspired The Times
s Matthew Bond to like the show. However, despite identifying "genuine humour" such as Slatt's rant against French teachers, Bond's review is largely critical. He concedes, "the teaching organisations, you see, are half right. Slatt has no credible basis in the teaching profession, but far more importantly he has no credible basis in the human race. And what we don't believe in, we rarely find funny."
Kevin Lygo, the show's executive producer and head of Independent Commissions Entertainment, who commissioned the series defending the show from the union's criticisms, saying: "Chalk is a comedy. Just as Ben Elton's Thin Blue Line
does not reflect the modern police force nor The Vicar of Dibley
the Church of England today, Chalk was never intended to reflect life in British schools." Moffat said that Chalk was written "just for larks" and was not intended as a serious political diatribe. However, Scotland on Sunday responded in a piece placing Chalk in the context of other television shows about schools: "where such dramas fall down is not in shirking some contrived social responsibility but in their playing up to so many daft myths about the teaching profession. They could almost be written by one of those strange politicians who deny there is an education crises in Britain."
, Moffat claims that "no-one bought it", including him.
The complete first series was released on Region 2 PAL DVD by ReplayDVD, the independent label that had released Joking Apart, on 15 December 2008. The disc contains audio commentaries
on all six episodes; Nicola Walker, Martin Ball, Geraldine Fitzgerald and John Grillo commentate over four of the episodes, with David Bamber and Amanda Boxer contributing to the remaining two. All of the above, along with producer Andre Ptaszynski, also feature in a 45-minute retrospective documentary, After the Chalk Dust Settled.
British television
Public television broadcasting started in the United Kingdom in 1936, and now has a collection of free and subscription services over a variety of distribution media, through which there are over 480 channelsTaking the base Sky EPG TV Channels. A breakdown is impossible due to a) the number of...
sitcom set in a comprehensive school
Comprehensive school
A comprehensive school is a state school that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude. This is in contrast to the selective school system, where admission is restricted on the basis of a selection criteria. The term is commonly used in relation to the United...
named Galfast High. Two series, both written by Steven Moffat
Steven Moffat
Steven Moffat is a Scottish television writer and producer.Moffat's first television work was the teen drama series Press Gang. His first sitcom, Joking Apart, was inspired by the breakdown of his first marriage; conversely, his later sitcom Coupling was based upon the development of his...
, were broadcast on BBC1
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
in 1997. Like Moffat's earlier sitcom Joking Apart
Joking Apart
Joking Apart is a BBC television sitcom written by Steven Moffat about the rise and fall of a relationship. It juxtaposes a couple, Mark and Becky , who fall in love and marry, before getting separated and finally divorced...
, Chalk was produced by Andre Ptaszynski
Andre Ptaszynski
André Ptaszynski is a British theatre producer. He studied English at Jesus College, Oxford.He was Chief Executive of the Really Useful Group from 2005 to 2011 and Chief Executive of Really Useful Theatres from 2000 to 2005...
for Pola Jones.
The series focuses upon deputy headteacher Eric Slatt (David Bamber
David Bamber
David James Bamber is an English actor, known for his television and theatre work. He is an Associate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.-Early years:...
), permanently stressed over the chaos he creates both by himself and some of his eccentric staff. His wife Janet (Geraldine Fitzgerald
Geraldine Fitzgerald (British actress)
Geraldine Fitzgerald is a British actress who has appeared in many stage shows and television programmes.Having appeared in minor roles in various shows, her first major television role was as Janet Slatt in Steven Moffat's school sitcom Chalk. Two series were broadcast in 1997...
) and new English teacher Suzy Travis (Nicola Walker
Nicola Walker
Nicola Walker is an English actress, best known for her starring roles in various British television programmes from the 1990s onwards, particularly as Ruth Evershed in the spy drama Spooks. She has also worked in theatre, radio and film....
) attempt to help him solve the problems.
Because of the very good reaction of the studio audience, a second series was commissioned before the first had been broadcast. However, journalists were critical of the show, highlighting stylistic similarities to Fawlty Towers
Fawlty Towers
Fawlty Towers is a British sitcom produced by BBC Television and first broadcast on BBC2 in 1975. Twelve television program episodes were produced . The show was written by John Cleese and his then wife Connie Booth, both of whom played major characters...
. Some members of the teaching profession and its unions objected to the negative representation of teachers and the comprehensive system. The second series did not receive a stable broadcast slot, with many episodes aired after 10pm. The first series was released on DVD in December 2008.
Inception
Steven Moffat left his job as an English teacher at Cowdenknowes High in GreenockGreenock
Greenock is a town and administrative centre in the Inverclyde council area in United Kingdom, and a former burgh within the historic county of Renfrewshire, located in the west central Lowlands of Scotland...
to write the BAFTA-award winning show Press Gang
Press Gang
Press Gang is a British children's television comedy-drama consisting of forty-three episodes across five series that were broadcast from 1989 to 1993...
. However, its high cost and changes in the executive structure at Central Independent Television
Central Independent Television
Central Independent Television, more commonly known as Central is the Independent Television contractor for the Midlands, created following the restructuring of ATV and commencing broadcast on 1 January 1982. The station is owned and operated by ITV plc, under the licensee of ITV Broadcasting...
meant that the show might not be recommissioned after its second series. As the writer wondered what to do next and was worried about future employment, Bob Spiers
Bob Spiers
Bob Spiers was a director. He is particularly noted as the director of the early series of Absolutely Fabulous , the musical comedy Spiceworld, and of the second series of Fawlty Towers . He also worked with Steven Moffat on Press Gang and Joking Apart...
, Press Gangs primary director, suggested that he meet with producer Andre Ptaszynski
Andre Ptaszynski
André Ptaszynski is a British theatre producer. He studied English at Jesus College, Oxford.He was Chief Executive of the Really Useful Group from 2005 to 2011 and Chief Executive of Really Useful Theatres from 2000 to 2005...
to discuss writing a sitcom. Inspired by his experience in education (in addition to his own former career, his father was a headteacher), the writer's initial proposal was similar to what would become Chalk. However, Ptaszynski realised that Moffat was talking more passionately at the meeting at the Groucho Club
Groucho Club
The Groucho Club is a well-known private social club located at Dean Street in Soho, London. Its members are mostly drawn from the media, entertainment, arts and fashion industries....
about his impending divorce and suggested that he write about that instead. That idea became Joking Apart
Joking Apart
Joking Apart is a BBC television sitcom written by Steven Moffat about the rise and fall of a relationship. It juxtaposes a couple, Mark and Becky , who fall in love and marry, before getting separated and finally divorced...
, which received low audience figures but a high rating on the Appreciation Index
Appreciation Index
The Audience Appreciation Index is a score out of 100 which is used as an indicator of the public's appreciation for a television or radio programme, or broadcast service, in the United Kingdom. Until 2002, the AI of a programme was calculated by BARB, the organisation that compiles television...
. In an interview with The Herald
The Herald (Glasgow)
The Herald is a broadsheet newspaper published Monday to Saturday in Glasgow, and available throughout Scotland. As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 47,226, giving it a lead over Scotland's other 'quality' national daily, The Scotsman, published in Edinburgh.The 1889 to 1906 editions...
, Moffat reflected on the nature of writing from experience: "I don't think you have an alternative to writing about what you know. You've no life experience to go on other than your own. Even if you're writing something you think is entirely remote from you - Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
, for instance - you'll find the finished result is actually very close to your own experience. That's not a conscious decision a writer makes - it's an inevitability."
After the second series of Joking Apart had been transmitted, Ptaszynski revived Moffat's original idea about a sitcom set in a school. In an article for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
newspaper, writer and comedian Richard Herring
Richard Herring
Richard Keith Herring is a British comedian and writer, whose early work includes his involvement in the double-act, Lee and Herring...
observed that Moffat has not used the show "as a soapbox from which to satirise the government’s educational policy, preferring to concentrate on being funny ... yet beneath it all is a much more broadly satirical swipe at the implicit pointlessness of the way we are educated." For this article, Moffat told Herring:
Secondary School is a big waste of time. What are French teachers doing? None of us can speak French. How much maths can you do? Do you know any history? What is the point in training people to do things that none of us can do? The system seems designed to qualify you for the Indian Civil Service in 1911. We all leave school unable to drive! Now that would be quite handy.
Moffat discussed similar institutional and political issues with The Independent:
Staffrooms are funny places, full of articulate, mad people. They have a tremendous sense of black humour, but there's a layer of dust over them. They are immature because they're in a children's environment all the time. They have a strange perspective; because they spend all day with kids, they are more aware of kids' culture than adults'. When they read about a former pupil who has become head of ICIImperial Chemical IndustriesImperial Chemical Industries was a British chemical company, taken over by AkzoNobel, a Dutch conglomerate, one of the largest chemical producers in the world. In its heyday, ICI was the largest manufacturing company in the British Empire, and commonly regarded as a "bellwether of the British...
, they always say, 'But that boy's an idiot. He's crap at geography.' The boy is condemned forever because in the 1960s he didn't know all the capitals of the Third World.
The Independent reported that Moffat "stresses that Chalk is a sitcom, not some banner-waving, agitprop pamphlet", but is still "passionate about education". Moffat criticises "the
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
As with Joking Apart, Ptaszynski produced Chalk for independent production company Pola Jones. The positive reaction of the studio audience during recording of the first series in 1996 propelled executives to commission a second set of six episodes before the first batch had aired.
Recording
Acland Burghley School
Acland Burghley School is a mixed comprehensive secondary school in the Tufnell Park area of the London Borough of Camden, in London, England. The school received specialist status as an Arts College in 2000...
, in the Tufnell Park
Tufnell Park
Tufnell Park is an area of north London, England which straddles the border of the London Borough of Islington and the London Borough of Camden.-Origins:...
area of Camden
London Borough of Camden
In 1801, the civil parishes that form the modern borough were already developed and had a total population of 96,795. This continued to rise swiftly throughout the 19th century, as the district became built up; reaching 270,197 in the middle of the century...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, provided the exterior of the fictional Galfast High. The cast recall that it was difficult to perform comedy on location without a studio audience to gauge the reception and success of the jokes. Another school near Wembley
Wembley
Wembley is an area of northwest London, England, and part of the London Borough of Brent. It is home to the famous Wembley Stadium and Wembley Arena...
was used for large interior shots, such as the school hall featured in the episode "The Inspection". Rehearsals took place in BBC premises in Acton
Acton, London
Acton is a district of west London, England, located in the London Borough of Ealing. It is situated west of Charing Cross.At the time of the 2001 census, Acton, comprising the wards of East Acton, Acton Central, South Acton and Southfield, had a population of 53,689 people...
, west London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, colloquially known by those in the industry as the "Acton Hilton". David Bamber, his colleagues note, knew the script at the beginning of rehearsals and never dropped a line. The cast recall that director Juliet May
Juliet May
Juliet May is a British television director. She has directed a variety of television shows, including Challenge Anneka, Dalziel and Pascoe, Hope and Glory New Tricks and the award-winning Miranda....
provided a calm working environment; rather than losing her temper when things went wrong, she instead focussed everyone's mind on how to solve the problem.
After the exterior shots had been filmed, the episodes were recorded at BBC Television Centre
BBC Television Centre
BBC Television Centre at White City in West London is the headquarters of BBC Television. Officially opened on 29 June 1960, it remains one of the largest to this day; having featured over the years as backdrop to many BBC programmes, it is one of the most readily recognisable such facilities...
in London. Most of the episodes were recorded in studios three or four, but occasionally the larger studio eight was used. After a week's rehearsals, the episodes were filmed on Sundays. The cast and crew would have a camera rehearsal followed by a dress run. After a supper, the cast were introduced to the studio audience.
BBC executives insisted that the title be changed as they felt that "Chalk" did not stand out in the schedules. They were also concerned that the title might be somewhat anachronistic because schools were beginning to use whiteboard
Whiteboard
A whiteboard is a name for any glossy, usually white surface for nonpermanent markings. Whiteboards are analogous to chalkboards, allowing rapid marking and erasing of markings on their surface...
s rather than chalkboard
Chalkboard
A chalkboard or blackboard is a reusable writing surface on which text or drawings are made with sticks of calcium sulfate or calcium carbonate, known, when used for this purpose, as chalk. Chalkboards were originally made of smooth, thin sheets of black or dark grey slate stone...
s. Many people, including the actors, attempted to think of alternatives, but instead reverted back to "Chalk".
Funding was running low towards the end of filming the first series. Moffat contrived an episode, "The Staff Meeting", where all of the main cast would be locked in the staff room to avoid paying for any guest actors. To reduce expenditure further, crew members were enlisted to provide the voices for the television news report at the end of the episode: producer Andre Ptaszynski played the broadcast journalist, whilst second assistant director Sarah Daman voiced the protesting student Gail Bennett. When a guest actor delivered an inadequate performance of the psychiatric doctor at the end of "The Inspection", Moffat coached assistant director Stacey Adair to perform the line. However, professional actor C.J. Allen lived near to the location and he was enlisted to deliver the line instead.
The expense and restrictions placed upon child actors limited the number of pupils that could be featured. The non-speaking extras had to be licensed, a process that took four weeks, providing difficulties for assistant director Stacey Adair. The episode "Both Called Eric" features Antony Costa
Antony Costa
Antony Daniel Costa is an English singer-songwriter and actor. He is best known as a member of the boyband Blue.-Career:One of Costa's earliest television roles was as a pupil in Steven Moffat's sitcom Chalk...
as one of the pupils, one of his earliest TV roles before going on to appear in Grange Hill
Grange Hill
Grange Hill is a British television drama series originally made by the BBC. The show began in 1978 on BBC1 and was one of the longest running programmes on British television...
and in the boy band Blue
Blue (boy band)
Blue are an English pop vocal group, whose members are Simon Webbe, Lee Ryan, Duncan James and Antony Costa. Blue originally formed in 2001 before splitting in 2005. In 2009, it was confirmed that the band would reform. In April 2009, the group reunited and a Best of Blue Tour was announced...
.
Episodes
The sitcom is based at the fictional comprehensive schoolComprehensive school
A comprehensive school is a state school that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude. This is in contrast to the selective school system, where admission is restricted on the basis of a selection criteria. The term is commonly used in relation to the United...
Galfast High. It begins with the arrival of the young new English teacher Suzie Travis (Nicola Walker
Nicola Walker
Nicola Walker is an English actress, best known for her starring roles in various British television programmes from the 1990s onwards, particularly as Ruth Evershed in the spy drama Spooks. She has also worked in theatre, radio and film....
). She immediately encounters the chaos of the school, a chaos enhanced by the manic Deputy Head Eric Slatt (David Bamber
David Bamber
David James Bamber is an English actor, known for his television and theatre work. He is an Associate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.-Early years:...
). The Guardian retrospectively commented that the show's "best episodes of ... manouevred their unwitting participants towards a climax of terrible sexual humiliation or violence."
Moffat integrated many references
Fictional crossover
A fictional crossover is the placement of two or more otherwise discrete fictional characters, settings, or universes into the context of a single story. They can arise from legal agreements between the relevant copyright holders, or because of unauthorized efforts by fans, or even amid common...
to secondary characters and locations from his previous BAFTA winning show Press Gang into Chalk. For instance, the Chalk character Eric Slatt refers to his neighbouring school Norbridge High, run by Mr Sullivan: these were the names of the school and deputy headmaster in Press Gang. The scene where Slatt is being given instructions by wire is taken from the unfilmed Press Gang movie Dead Line. The pornographic video Lesbian Spank Inferno, owned by Dan McGill in the final episode, is later referenced in the Coupling
Coupling (UK TV series)
Coupling is a British television sitcom written by Steven Moffat that aired on BBC2 from May 2000 to June 2004. Produced by Hartswood Films for the BBC, the show centres on the dating and sexual adventures and mishaps of six friends in their thirties, often depicting the three women and the three...
episode "Inferno". In an interview with The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, Moffat admitted that the video is inspired by his then-new partner, Sue Vertue
Sue Vertue
Sue Vertue is a British television producer. She has produced many comedy shows, including Mr. Bean and Coupling.Vertue worked for Tiger Aspect, a production company run by Peter Bennett-Jones, where she produced episodes of Mr. Bean, The Vicar of Dibley and Gimme Gimme Gimme.Vertue met writer...
, finding a similar video in their VCR.
Characters
Eric Slatt (David BamberDavid Bamber
David James Bamber is an English actor, known for his television and theatre work. He is an Associate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.-Early years:...
) is the deputy headmaster of Galfast High, who seems to "deepen the many crises that face the school (most of Slatt’s own making)". Jeff Evans, writing in the The Penguin TV Companion, observed that "Slatt is certainly keen, but regrettably he is also unbalanced, tactless, clumsy, snobby, sarcastic, at times pointlessly aggressive and always prone to appalling errors of judgment (an academic version of Basil Fawlty
Basil Fawlty
Basil Fawlty is the main character of the British sitcom Fawlty Towers, played by John Cleese. The character is often thought of as an iconic British comedy character, and has been deemed unforgettable despite only a dozen half-hour episodes ever being made....
, it was widely noted)". The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
commented: "Chalk is in the idiom of sadistic farce: disaster begets catastrophe begets apocalypse, and they all engulf Slatt. There are inevitable echoes of other sitcom characters - a dash of Basil Fawlty's unquenchable apoplexy, a slice of Gordon Brittas
The Brittas Empire
The Brittas Empire is a British sitcom created and originally written by Richard Fegen and Andrew Norriss. Chris Barrie plays Gordon Brittas, the well-meaning but incompetent manager of Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre....
's purblind monomania - but Slatt's entanglements are caused by his own cocktail of failings." Nicola Walker commented that viewers sympathise with Slatt because he is in charge of a bunch of lunatics. Moffat told The Herald that Slatt was inspired by a real person:
My main character, the deputy head, is a manic git, and he's based on a guy I never actually met and is therefore being denigrated terribly. He had already retired by the time I started but I used to get a lift to work from his wife, who still worked there. And she would tell me stories about him with the affectionate disdain of anyone who has been married for more than a year. In the staff room, all these bitter teachers who hadn't been promoted would describe him as someone who would only briefly consider stopping short of invading Poland if he got the chance. I've since found out that the real man is actually a very nice bloke.
Ptaszynski had attempted to persuade his friend Angus Deayton
Angus Deayton
Gordon Angus Deayton is an English actor, writer, musician, comedian and broadcaster. He is best known for his role as Victor Meldrew's long-suffering neighbour Patrick Trench in the comedy series One Foot in the Grave...
, who wanted to move into more acting roles away from Have I Got News for You
Have I Got News for You
Have I Got News for You is a British television panel show produced by Hat Trick Productions for the BBC. It is based loosely on the BBC Radio 4 show The News Quiz, and has been broadcast since 1990, currently the BBC's longest-ever running television panel show...
, to play Slatt. The producer reflects that Deayton would have brought a more "sardonic" element to the character. The cast regularly teased David Bamber during rehearsals, speculating upon how Deayton might have performed a particular line or sequence.
Janet Slatt (Geraldine Fitzgerald
Geraldine Fitzgerald (British actress)
Geraldine Fitzgerald is a British actress who has appeared in many stage shows and television programmes.Having appeared in minor roles in various shows, her first major television role was as Janet Slatt in Steven Moffat's school sitcom Chalk. Two series were broadcast in 1997...
) is Eric's wife and the school's secretary. She has an antagonistic relationship with Eric, with each regularly the butt of the other's jokes. For instance, Eric suggests one morning that she had not shaved, and that she should rest her hind legs.
Suzy Travis (Nicola Walker
Nicola Walker
Nicola Walker is an English actress, best known for her starring roles in various British television programmes from the 1990s onwards, particularly as Ruth Evershed in the spy drama Spooks. She has also worked in theatre, radio and film....
) is a new English teacher who arrives at the school in the first episode. The press described Suzy as "the voice of sanity at Galfast High and the thorn in Slatt's side."
Amanda Trippley (Amanda Boxer
Amanda Boxer
Amanda Boxer is an English actress who is best known for her television work and her performance in The Last Days of Judas Iscariot at the Almeida Theatre and The Painter by Rebecca Lenkiewicz at the Arcola Theatre....
) is the neurotic music teacher. Throughout the series, she invents her pupils to prevent her department being closed, uses the school's telephone network to surf the internet about Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
, and demands the return of a musical instrument from a former pupil now on death row
Death row
Death row signifies the place, often a section of a prison, that houses individuals awaiting execution. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting execution , even in places where no special facility or separate unit for condemned inmates exists.After individuals are found...
.
Dan McGill (Martin Ball
Martin Ball
Martin Ball is an English theatre and television actor. He was born and grew up in Royal Tunbridge Wells in Kent. He trained at Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, and graduated in 1992.-Career:...
) is a young teacher who instantly develops a crush on Suzy when she arrives at the school, and attempts to date her throughout the series. The character is given most prominence in "The Staff Meeting" episode, which was written in order to save money by not having any guest actors. In this episode it is revealed that Dan has agreed to teach several subjects in order to keep his job. Suzy is dismayed to find that he invented an entire language when he became a foreign languages teacher, and then invented its country (Estranzia) when made a Geography teacher. After Ball's performance in that episode, Moffat promised him that he would not underwrite him in the second series.
Mr Carkdale (John Grillo
John Grillo
John Grillo is a British actor and playwright who has appeared in many film and television productions....
), the head of English, very rarely utters anything but expletives. Struggling to find a rationale for his character, Grillo paced up and down a rehearsal room carrying a brown briefcase, which he remembers all of his own teachers carrying around, and shouting profanities.
Mr Richard Nixon (John Wells
John Wells (satirist)
John Wells was an English actor, writer and satirist, educated at Eastbourne College and St Edmund Hall, Oxford...
) was the headteacher in the first series. Evans observes that he "shows precious little leadership", and the running of the school seems to fall to Slatt. Wells was too ill to participate in the second series, and died a year after its transmission.
Mr J.F. Kennedy (Duncan Preston
Duncan Preston
Duncan Preston is an English actor probably best known for his appearances in television productions written by Victoria Wood. His best remembered roles are Clifford in the Victoria Wood As Seen On TV soap opera parody Acorn Antiques , and Stan in dinnerladies.In July 2010, Preston revealed he was...
) replaced Mr Nixon as the head in the second series. Like Nixon, Mr Kennedy takes a back-seat in the developments. In the final episode he reads a letter from the former head, which inadvertently serves to show how their characters are identical.
Jason Cockfoster (Damien Matthews) is a young religious education
Religious education
In secular usage, religious education is the teaching of a particular religion and its varied aspects —its beliefs, doctrines, rituals, customs, rites, and personal roles...
teacher. He arrives at the school in the first series episode "Both Called Eric", and appears more regularly in the second series. Suzy is immediately attracted to him, making Dan McGill so jealous that he tells the pupils that he is Satan
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
. The character was a deliberate attempt to add some sex appeal to the show.
Reception
Due to the positive reaction of the studio audience during recordings, a second series was commissioned before the first had started to be transmitted. However, the show was, as Mark LawsonMark Lawson
Mark Gerard Lawson is an English journalist, broadcaster and author.-Life and career:Born in Hendon, London, Lawson was raised in Yorkshire and is a Leeds United fan. He was educated at St Columba's College in St Albans and took a degree in English at University College London, where his lecturers...
summarised, "widely disliked". The BBC's publicity department compared Chalk to Fawlty Towers in the publicity materials. Critics, though, took exception to a new show being compared so such a renowned and respected programme. The cast point out that Fawlty Towers and Chalk are completely different shows, while Nicola Walker says that the comparison is like being asked to be "compared to a comedy God". Writing for the BBC Guide to Comedy
BBC Guide to Comedy
The BBC Guide to Comedy was a former subsite of bbc.co.uk which offered "Info on every TV comedy shown in the UK, from 1936 to today..."Written and researched by Mark Lewisohn, the content of the site was first available as a book The Radio Times Guide to Comedy in 1998...
, Mark Lewisohn
Mark Lewisohn
Mark Lewisohn is an English author and historian, regarded as the world's leading authority on the English rock band The Beatles.-The Beatles and related subjects:...
observes that the critical reception was mixed, with "its detractors pointing out that Eric Slatt was a carbon copy of John Cleese
John Cleese
John Marwood Cleese is an English actor, comedian, writer, and film producer. He achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report...
's Basil Fawlty [and] its supporters praising its non-PC, off-the-wall approach and the breathlessly paced plots that delivered moments of high farce." Lewisohn also comments that while some elements of the show resemble Please Sir!
Please Sir!
Please Sir! was a London Weekend Television produced situation comedy, created by writers John Esmonde and Bob Larbey and featured the actors John Alderton, Deryck Guyler, Joan Sanderson, Noel Howlett, Erik Chitty and Richard Davies...
, "Chalk more closely resembled the ill-fated Hardwicke House
Hardwicke House
Hardwicke House was a 1987 seven-episode sitcom produced by Central Independent Television for the ITV network. It was so negatively received that only the first two episodes were transmitted.-Plot and episode titles :...
with its concentration on the teachers rather than the pupils, dark themes and overall depiction of the teachers as ... nuts." Tom Lappin for Scotland on Sunday
Scotland on Sunday
Scotland on Sunday is a Scottish Sunday newspaper, published in Edinburgh by The Scotsman Publications Ltd and consequently assuming the role of Sunday sister to its daily stablemate The Scotsman...
derided the combination of Chris Barrie
Chris Barrie
Chris Barrie is a British actor. He first achieved success as a vocal impressionist, notably in the ITV sketch show Spitting Image...
's Gordon Brittas and Cleese's Basil Fawlty.
The first four episodes were transmitted at 21:30, but the final two episodes of the second series were moved to 22:20. The second series received an unstable timeslot, being replaced in its more mainstream slot by Men Behaving Badly
Men Behaving Badly
Men Behaving Badly is a British comedy that was created and written by Simon Nye. It follows the lives of Gary Strang and his flatmates, Dermot Povey and Tony Smart It was first broadcast on ITV in 1992...
. Commenting on the second series, the Glasgow Herald said, "the manic depute head of Galfast High, Eric Slatt, is looking more and more like Basil Fawlty on a bad day. So are those of us who remain glued to it in ghoulish fascination to see if it can get any worse." Tabloid newspaper The Mirror published a damming review of the show's second series opener:
The head of comedy at Television Centre deserves six of the best for bringing backChalk (BBC1) for a second term. If the opening episode of the new series is anything to go by, we are in for six of the worst half-hours of comedy in the history of television ... It is no surprise that the show has been relegated to a late slot. It is a watershed for smut. Some of the jokes were in the worst possible taste. The standards of comedy are so pitiful, Galfast High School should not have been given a grant from TV licence-payers' money and it is time it closed its gates for good. David Bamber ... deserves a better vehicle for his acting talents. He was lured into playing Eric Slatt because the character was supposed to be the classroom equivalent of Basil Fawlty. They are as different as Chalk and Cleese.
In an interview in the early 2000s, Moffat refused to even mention Chalk, joking that he might get attacked in the street. The first series received criticism from some teachers and teaching unions, who criticised the representation of their professions. Letters were printed in specialist publications such as the Education Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
. The Association of Teachers and Lecturers
Association of Teachers and Lecturers
The Association of Teachers and Lecturers is a trade union, teachers' union and professional association, affiliated to the Trades Union Congress, in the United Kingdom representing educators from nursery and primary education to further education...
labelled Chalk as "perverse" and "vapid", and its leader
Peter Smith (union leader)
Peter Smith CBE was general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers in the United Kingdom from 1988 to 2002...
called upon the show to be axed. Teachers, according to the Daily Record, complained that the show portrayed teachers as "mentally unstable", and deterred people from entering the profession. John Grillo, who played Mr Carkdale, recalls that he was appearing in a West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
play at the time he was auditioning for the role; a fellow actor in the play was meant to be auditioning for Chalk but, having been a deputy head teacher earlier in his career, was so disgusted by the material that he refused to attend. The unions' derision actually inspired The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
s Matthew Bond to like the show. However, despite identifying "genuine humour" such as Slatt's rant against French teachers, Bond's review is largely critical. He concedes, "the teaching organisations, you see, are half right. Slatt has no credible basis in the teaching profession, but far more importantly he has no credible basis in the human race. And what we don't believe in, we rarely find funny."
Kevin Lygo, the show's executive producer and head of Independent Commissions Entertainment, who commissioned the series defending the show from the union's criticisms, saying: "Chalk is a comedy. Just as Ben Elton's Thin Blue Line
The Thin Blue Line (TV series)
The Thin Blue Line is a British sitcom starring Rowan Atkinson set in a police station that ran for two series on the BBC from 1995 to 1996...
does not reflect the modern police force nor The Vicar of Dibley
The Vicar of Dibley
The Vicar of Dibley is a British sitcom created by Richard Curtis and written for its lead actress, Dawn French, by Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer, with contributions from Kit Hesketh-Harvey. It aired from 1994 to 2007...
the Church of England today, Chalk was never intended to reflect life in British schools." Moffat said that Chalk was written "just for larks" and was not intended as a serious political diatribe. However, Scotland on Sunday responded in a piece placing Chalk in the context of other television shows about schools: "where such dramas fall down is not in shirking some contrived social responsibility but in their playing up to so many daft myths about the teaching profession. They could almost be written by one of those strange politicians who deny there is an education crises in Britain."
Home release
The first three episodes were released on VHS in the United Kingdom on 7 September 1998 by BBC Video (now 2entertain). During a DVD audio commentary for CouplingCoupling (UK TV series)
Coupling is a British television sitcom written by Steven Moffat that aired on BBC2 from May 2000 to June 2004. Produced by Hartswood Films for the BBC, the show centres on the dating and sexual adventures and mishaps of six friends in their thirties, often depicting the three women and the three...
, Moffat claims that "no-one bought it", including him.
The complete first series was released on Region 2 PAL DVD by ReplayDVD, the independent label that had released Joking Apart, on 15 December 2008. The disc contains audio commentaries
Audio commentary
On disc-based video formats, an audio commentary is an additional audio track consisting of a lecture or comments by one or more speakers, that plays in real time with video...
on all six episodes; Nicola Walker, Martin Ball, Geraldine Fitzgerald and John Grillo commentate over four of the episodes, with David Bamber and Amanda Boxer contributing to the remaining two. All of the above, along with producer Andre Ptaszynski, also feature in a 45-minute retrospective documentary, After the Chalk Dust Settled.