[upbeat music]
[school bell ringing]
Every morning. Off!
Sorry. Carry on.
[students chattering]
Morning, class.
[students] Morning, sir.
I have taken the liberty of doing the form register for you.
Shh, shh.
[in Chinese] You're a pathetic excuse for a teacher.
Jing, your language is very beautiful
but means nothing to me.
Parents' evening tonight, sir.
You get to meet my mum.
Everyone says she's a MILF.
Chantelle, have you not got a class to be preparing for?
Maths. We're doing fractions.
Apparently 23 won't go into 15.
Mrs. Mollinson says it's impossible.
We'll see about that.
Oh, I can't believe you did that!
Rem Dogg, why are you late?
-Wheelchair. -And you, Mitchell?
Well, this thing don't push itself, does it?
Look, please, it's Monday morning.
I have a hangover.
Joe, can you just go and see if that first aid box
has got any Berocca in it?
Yes, Dad!
[students laughing]
Oh, my days!
He just called Mr. Wickers Dad! [laughs]
-What a helmet! -Shut up, Mitchell.
At least he knows who his dad is.
[students] Oohh.
[upbeat music]
[snoring]
[slams door]
And that is how quiet Anne Frank
and her family had to be to evade capture by the Nazis.
Mr. Wickers, I need the papers.
[German accent] You want to see my papers?
The mock exam papers, Mr. Wickers.
Anything?
Has anyone ever told you that you would make a wonderful SS officer?
Yes. Now shall we just do this in my office?
Yeah.
I need to process the mock exam results
for parents' evening tonight.
Yeah, right, good. I was hoping you'd ask about those.
Stop fanny farting, Mr. Wickers.
Just give me the results, where are they?
[clicks tongue]
-All up here. -What?
Seriously. Give me any student, I'll give you their results.
-Mitchell Harper. -A.
-Chantelle Parsons. -A.
-Natalya Lisovskaya. -A.
Natalya Lisovskaya was a double gold
medal-winning Soviet shot putter.
What they get up to in their free time
is none of my concern, Isobel.
[exhales] Don't call me that.
Izzy? Is that better? Sort of more chummy.
The Izzter.
[soft chuckle]
I suppose you think you've got balls coming in here
playing your silly little games.
Well, let me tell you something,
I've got bigger balls than you'll ever have.
Well, it's written in the gent's, but I assumed that was just a rumor.
It's a metaphor, Mr. Wickers.
Let me hit you with another one.
You're skating on very thin ice.
And that ice is cracking with the weight of me
and my ginormous balls.
Two's company, three's a crowd.
So, wait, now you've got three balls?
-By five or they all fail. -By five?!
But that's like 30 papers!
That's like three hours marking!
This is slave labor.
You are persecuting me.
Parents' evening is my opportunity to show you up
for who you really are.
By five, or you'll be running home to your daddy
like the pathetic little boy you are.
Oh, I won't be running anywhere.
-Really? -No.
Because Daddy is picking me up in the car.
[upbeat music]
Alfie, your post in my pigeonhole again.
Morning, Rosie. What is it, another nomination for Teacher Of The Year?
Outstanding payment on a student loan.
[chuckles]
What are you like? Lovely.
I look terrible, but thanks.
I was thinking about you last night.
I was on my way to the gym for an ab-attack.
And I went past Cafe Rouge.
Reminded me of our little date.
It was a staff party.
You say potato, I say... Date.
Oh, please, Alfie, not today.
Richard broke up with me last night.
What? He broke up with you?
Why? You're perfect.
Oh, you know, I guess it's a relief, you know.
I mean, I'm a very physical person
and I think Richard was intimidated by that.
What a square!
I mean, for the last few months
we barely touched each other.
Now I'm going to take a break from relationships
and throw myself into my voluntary work.
No more dating men for me.
Just orphans and abused children.
Oh, as in the charity work?
-Obviously. -Obviously, yeah.
But if I need some teary pity sex,
you'll be on my shortlist.
I'd clear my diary like that.
Except for Thursday. It's my dad's birthday,
so he's taking me and a friend to go and see Cirque du Soleil.
Richard used to love the circus.
Someone put your post in my pigeonhole.
Yeah, like I'm going to fall for that trick, Mollinson.
[upbeat music]
Class, I've got good news and bad news.
-What do you want? -The bad news.
Well, Jing, the good news is that today's history module
is Pearl Harbor, and we all know what that means.
It's class wars!
Right, okay.
So, it's December 7th, 1941.
We're in Hawaii, a military port.
The first thing we're going to require is some Americans.
Andre, you're Ben Affleck.
Joe, Josh Hartnett.
-Rem Dogg, you're a tank. -Yes!
Next up, I'm going to need a nurse.
Where's my Beckinsale?
Please, sir, I'm great with cancer.
And I know all the words to Beaches.
All right, you can be Beckinsale.
Now, finally, we require a member
of the Japanese Imperial Air Force.
The Emperor will be proud of you, my lotus flower.
-She's Chinese, you muppet! -I know.
OK, positions!
It's kamikaze time.
Wait, sir, what about the bad news?
Um, you might, probably, almost definitely
are all going to fail your mock exams.
What do you mean we're going to fail?
It's complicated, all right,
I didn't want to bore you with it.
The important lesson here
is for you to look for the positives in failure.
Like, for example, my grandad.
He suffered failure. Lung failure.
Which meant that I inherited a Volvo.
So remember that.
Always look for the Volvo.
So it's a quiet morning in Pearl Harbor, but not in Tokyo.
Alfie, we can't fail. My dad will kill me.
-Don't be silly. -My dad will kill you.
Well, I mean, I guess I could mark some of them.
Listen, you mug! You need to mark all of them.
Yeah, you don't want to see my dad when he's angry.
He used to train in the same gym as David Haye.
And Sally Gunnell.
Nice kicks.
-Um, thank you? -Give them me.
-What? -Give... them... me.
No.
You couldn't even wear them, they have an orthopedic heel.
Shut up, Downton Abbey.
They would play havoc with your arches.
I'm sorry, Grayson, I'm not giving you my shoes.
Whoop, whoop! It's the sound of the police!
You have been apprehended.
You have the right to remain silent,
although that's unlikely, as you've been arrested
by Sergeant Fraser, head of Dave's Witty Banter Unit.
Step inside, Alf, need a quick conflabamundo.
-Lord, give me strength. -Grab some plastic, homeboy.
Look, you're not firing me, are you?
If this is about those fire extinguishers,
I was doing a class on democracy.
I was using Mitchell to demonstrate
Guantanamo Bay torture techniques.
[blows] [makes gun sounds]
Holster those pistols, young ranger,
let's just control-alt-Apple-Z
that last little outburst, shall we?
Although for the record,
that can definitely never happen again.
I get it. You are intimidated by my teaching methods.
Right? Yeah, but I make learning fun.
If I was a font, I'd be Comic Sans.
You are so Times New Roman.
Shut the funk door!
You know I'd be Wingdings. Crazy.
Any-shiz, some of the old school don't get you.
But I do. I'm young, I'm cool and I find your approach...
[gulping sound]
Ahh.
Refreshing.
However, this little man-to-man is about Rosie.
Miss Gulliver.
As Beyonce says, she's a single lady
and I'm going to put a ring in it.
What?!
You fancy Miss Gulliver?
I likey... I lighty.
Oh, what's that smell?
[sniffing]
Whiffy banter!
Oh, for f...
Look, what's this got to do with me?
Because, Alf, you're going to be my wingman!
Uh-uh, no way.
I need your help to get Gulliver to go on a date with me.
I'll literally follow your every word.
My every word?
All right. Well, I guess I could give you some pointers.
First piece of advice...
Completely ignore her.
Women love that shit.
-Really? -Yeah, it'll definitely work.
I can see we're going to make quite a team.
And, look, I'm already prepped.
Downloaded a chat-up app.
Let's roll the dice.
-You're ridiculous. -Yeah.
"Roses are red, violets are blue,
later tonight I'll be hanging out the back of..."
I probably won't use that one, actually.
Can I go now?
[upbeat music]
So, I decided, this evening, take your mind off Richard,
I would book us a--
No, no, absolutely, 100 percent definitely not.
Sounds like a maybe.
Look, I think the reason things didn't work out with Richard
is cause he was so old and boring.
You know, what a lot of women prefer nowadays is a toy boy.
Ashton and Demi.
Guy Ritchie and Madonna.
All divorced.
Ben Ofoedu and Vanessa Feltz.
Alf, I love you. Not in that way.
It's just...
You are a bit immature.
"You're a bit immature."
-Mm. -Look, I am a grown-up.
I do so many grown-up things.
I use coasters, I put my posters into frames.
I've got a bag-for-life.
Share my bag with me, Rosie.
Did that sound really desperate?
-A little. -Shit.
Immature.
Hi, yeah, is that TGI Fridays?
Uh, yeah, I want to cancel a table booked
under the name of Wickers.
Well, obviously if I'm cancelling the table,
I also want to cancel the cake.
I can't.
What's the point?
Sir?
-Oh. History or something. -Oh, stop being such a pussy.
-It's just a girl. -That's very perceptive.
Oh, no, what I meant to say was,
stop being such a girl, it's only pussy!
Right.
I suppose you'll be looking for a rebound then, sir?
I feel so hurt. So upset.
It's like getting kicked in the balls with a football
to the power of Mufasa dying in Lion King.
-[slaps] -Ow!
-Snap out of it. -Wow!
You've got quite a slap.
Well, you learn to defend yourself
when you're the only kid in the playground
with a Sade ringtone.
He's right, you need to man up!
-[slaps] -Ow!
Right, okay, enough with the slapping.
Sorry, I just wanted to hit you.
Hang on, guys, Mr. Wickers may be a bit of a twat.
-Right... -But despite being a twat...
You know, don't get me wrong, he's definitely a twat.
I think we get the picture.
But if he don't mark that shit, he will get fired,
then we could end up with a real teacher!
We can say goodbye to class wars and hello to homework. Screw that!
Oh, God, my parents might send me
to one of them all girls schools
where you're not allowed electric toothbrushes
or door handles or anything.
[in Chinese] Why don't you admit how incompetent you are and quit?
Of course, Jing!
You guys can mark them.
We'll do the pass-to-the-left method!
Why didn't I think of that?
Hooray for Jing!
[students cheering]
You're a joke.
Yeahhhhhhh! Woo!
[upbeat music]
[no audible dialogue]
A-ha, Alfie Wickers! The Wicker Man! Wickers World!
What's going on here?
Just organizing a post-workage meetage at the pubage,
Duke's Arms... age.
We're just going to talk about the school's charity calendar.
I really want to make a speech tonight at parents' evening
and the reason I've chosen this God-awful
degenerative disease is that--
I know all about Palmer's Syndrome.
[Miss Gulliver] Really?
Yep.
Personal experience, sadly.
Who?
-Joe's mum. -What, really?
Yeah. Yeah, she, she got the old...
[makes popping sound] PS.
-Caught it on holiday. -Caught it?
What I mean is, its caught up with her on holiday, obviously,
as Palmer's Syndrome isn't contagious. It's idiopathic.
Which strand did she contract?
-Both of them. -Bo--
Arthropathic and neuropathic?
-Yeah. Yeah. -Oh, my God.
-Correct. -God, so she had all of the symptoms?
-All of them, yeah. -Which ones?
You know, the main ones...
Insomnia.
Postural instability.
[Miss Gulliver] Oh, that's nasty.
Um, the face thing, with the face...
Face?
Her fingers fell off.
Her fingers fell off?
I did not know that that was a symptom.
Yeah, it's not so much a symptom.
It was, um, frostbite, she got... she got frostbite,
cause she was looking for a cure in Iceland.
That's why mums shouldn't go to Iceland!
Anyway, I don't want to go on about it but, you know,
I do do an awful lot for him.
I mean, only this morning in class...
No, I shouldn't say, it's silly.
-No, no, go on. -He called me Daddy.
Aw!
It's no biggie, you know.
I had no idea that Palmer's Syndrome
meant so much to you, Alfie.
But why don't you join us?
It'd be lovely to have his input, wouldn't it, Fraser?
Well, I think it'd be better if we were just...
Right, it would mean a lot.
Who cares for the carers?
Hey, we can all go. The more, the merrier.
-Thanks, Rosie. -That's okay!
Can I just talk to that student?
Go get him.
-Alfredo, good squire? -Mmm?
You wouldn't be cock-blocking me, would you, wingman?
No, no.
Of course not, wingman.
What I'm doing is demonstrating to her
how unsuitable I am to highlight how great you are.
-Maverick. -Mmm.
Thinking outside the box, Goose.
Oh, BT-dubs, love the way you rock out with your croc out.
[upbeat music]
Joe, I am going to need you to go ahead
and hide in the cupboard.
OK...
Quick!
Hey, sorry, just busy with...
Sorry, Alfie, I was just thinking, um,
about Joe's mum, um...
Alfie, why are the kids sat like that?
Oh, we're learning about South Africa.
Right. Um...
I was thinking, I could really use Joe's mum in the campaign.
Really? Is that a good idea?
It's a personal story, give the appeal resonance.
-Shock people into action! -Yeah, but--
So can I just have a quick word with Joe?
No. You can't, cause he was ill, so he went to the doctor.
Let's hope he hasn't got it as well.
Oh, well, if you see him, just tell me, won't you?
-Will do. -Okay.
[Joe] Can I come out now?
What was that?
-What was what, sorry? -That voice from the cupboard.
Nelson Mandela. Yeah. Robben Island.
Sorry, Mandy! 1989, one more year!
Crack on, you've got a book to write.
See you later.
Miss Gulliver is so buffting.
Yeah, she's hot, man, like proper spice!
No, she ain't!
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Chantelle. Shakespeare.
[in Chinese] It's actually from the Bible, idiot.
Shakespeare, Jing, he was an English writer who wrote Romeo and Juliet
and The King's Speech.
Hey!
So, you know the way I'm your favorite teacher
in the whole world?
Well, I need a little favor from my favorite pupil.
You are always asking me to do you favors.
No, I'm not. Give me one.
Yesterday, at break,
when you made me go up to Conor Wilson
and tell him that you were Banksy.
Look, all I need you to do this time, very simple,
is to pretend that your mum has a potentially fatal,
degenerative disease, so that Miss Gulliver
goes on a date with me and subsequently,
at some point in the future,
hopefully becomes my girlfriend.
♪ Free ♪
Okay.
♪ Free free free ♪
♪ Nelson Mandela ♪
♪ Free Nelson Mandela ♪
[clears throat]
Oh, Miss Pickwell. See you, uh, got the papers?
-Indeed. -Good.
So, uh, what were the results?
Oh, silly me.
All up here.
Whose do you want to know?
-Um... Mitchell? -Fail.
-Remi? -Fail.
-Stephen? -Fail.
Fail, fail, fail, fail,
fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail.
Okay. Starting to see a bit of a pattern emerging here.
Oh, what about Chantelle?
Oh, let's see. Oh, 100 percent.
"Could try harder to be less of a slag."
[chuckles] Classic.
You didn't mark their papers, Mr. Wickers. They did.
And because of this, they all failed.
The trouble with you, Mr. Wickers,
is you're all fart and no poo.
Let me tell you this, when I fart,
I follow through.
[electronic music]
So, as Chantelle's mother and... father?
I-I...
Sorry, um, you're not actually allowed to smoke in here,
or indeed any buildings these days.
Um, what it is, is that Chantelle
has, um, failed her mock exam.
I bet she done all right on her oral.
I teach history, we don't even do an...
Never mind.
Oh...
[rap music]
Dong.
So before we get onto Jing, serious question.
How long until all the pets we have will be robots?
[Miss Gulliver laughing]
[chattering]
Oh...
Struggling, Wickers?
I always find parents' evening a lot less stressful
if at least one of my children has passed.
That's the problem with you, Pickwell.
It's all about results and grades.
-My class have other talents. -Right.
Stephen knows all the words to Steel Magnolias.
-Wow! -That's like a three-hour film.
And Mitchell Harper can hold his breath for four minutes.
-Twice what I can do! -Right.
And you remember Joe, the boy you wanted to exclude?
Well, he has got a birthmark
that looks exactly like James May.
So you may not see much in my them,
but I believe in my class.
And for the record, they're not children, okay?
-They are young adults. -[Mitchell] Oh, shit!
Rem Dogg's dad's got a glass eye! [laughs]
What a penis!
[chuckles]
[upbeat music]
Alfie, I think this whole Miss Gulliver thing might've got out of hand.
What happened?
Well, she was asking me all these questions
and I just started panicking.
And then...
Look, look, calm down, it's going to be fine.
-I told her my mum was dead. -Oh, shit!
Boo!
Firstly, a mahoo-ssive thank you for coming to parents' evening.
I know it can be difficult hearing
how your sprogs are a little bit slow on the uptake.
And you're thinking, "Oh, God,
why didn't I lay off the cider after the first scan?"
But it's important to remember
that there are kids out there less fortunate than your own.
So here to tell you a little bit about
our fundraising venture is the wonderful Miss Gulliver.
Big hand, please.
-[audience applauding] -Shit, we have to stop her!
How?
We are all going to die.
[inhales inhaler]
But what if I told you, madam,
that your child wasn't going to reach the age of 30?
[inhales inhaler]
Because that's the reality of Palmer's Syndrome.
It's a condition that affects one in six million.
So give us all your fucking money now!
That is the message here.
Now, if everyone wants to make their way through to the foyer,
there's a complimentary glass of red or white wine.
Let's get in before Mollinson necks it all,
we all know what she's been like ever since her husband left her!
Alfie, not now. So I would like to tell you a story about a brave woman
who this year lost her battle with Palmer's Syndrome.
A remarkable woman.
Joe's mum.
Emma Poulter.
Hang on. Who?!
-Free booze! -What's going on?
Some people find loss very hard to take.
-Emma Poulter isn't dead. -Denial. First stage of grief.
I'm Emma Poulter.
Second stage, identity theft.
No, I am Emma Poulter!
[audience gasping, chattering]
No, I am Emma Poulter!
Because in many ways we're all Emma Poulters,
because this disease can affect anyone.
I'm very much alive, and I haven't got Palmer's Syndrome.
Alfie? She...
You said that...
She's got ten massive fingers!
Right, Wickers, my office now!
-Come on. -Wait! Wait!
It's not his fault. I did it.
I just wanted to make Mr. Wickers happy.
I just wanted to show off to him.
He's the dad I never really had.
-Oh, my God... -[all] Aw!
But I'm your dad.
Oh, bollocks.
[Miss Gulliver] God, I really need a drink.
Yeah, well, let's go to the pubage.
[Miss Gulliver] I haven't been out for a long time.
[Fraser] Don't worry, I'll look after you.
I'm sorry, Alfie.
It's just all so cringe.
I failed again.
Look for the Volvo.
Do you... Do you want to go play Time Crisis
and shove some dog shit through Pickwell's letter box?
Yeah.
Let's do that again.
[upbeat music]