A school-based cartoon series likely to cause more controversy than South Park and Teachers combined begins next week.
Bromwell High is set in a run-down south London comprehensive, with a cast of swearing teenagers and depressed teachers.
The Channel 4 programme contains plentiful jokes about sex and drugs, as well as scenes where pupils complain that “tolerance is for gays” and consider defecating on a teacher’s car.
But it is also sharply satirical about New Labour education initiatives.
One episode appears to lampoon the Government’s workforce reforms, with the headteacher replacing all his staff with monkeys - except for the PE teacher. “The unions don’t like it when you replace teachers with monkeys,” remarks a Department for Education and Skills official. “Especially when they get a better Ofsted report.”
Bromwell High is rebuilt using sponsorship from the Albanian Fried Chicken company, only for pupils to discover that the curriculum has been replaced by a series of chicken-related subjects.
The teachers are too fearful to take industrial action, so it is left to the pupils to fight back by calling a school election and setting up the “Save Comprehensive Education and F**k the Police” party.
Television watchdog Mediawatch fears the cartoon will encourage criminal behaviour among pupils and is urging parents to write to their MPs.
leader 14
Bromwell High begins next Friday on Channel 4 at 11.20pm
