Michael Palin was always my favourite and most talented Python. His characters were always heaps of fun. Together with Terry Jones he created Ripping Yarns and it was absolutely wonderful. Really, really funny and inventive comedy. Guest stars like Gwen Watford and Ian Ogilvy have a ball with their parts in Tomkinsons Schooldays. I loved it when Tomkinson ran away only to be caught by the school leopard!!!! Palin and Jones have a lot of fun with the boarding school genre. Ian Ogilvy answers his telephone with,"School bully.." wonderful stuff! One of the most consistent comedy series ever and , like Fawlty Towers, benefited by keeping to a few well-honed episodes. I would have loved to have seen more, but maybe Palin and Jones wanted to go out on top. It is as fresh now as it was back in the seventies.
3 Reviews
Tomkinson's Schooldays
Prismark107 July 2018
After the television series of Monty Python finished. Terry Jones and Michael Palin teamed up to create a spoof of the colonial boy's own adventures era.
The first episode is a riff on Tom Brown's Schooldays. It starts with a spoof of those introductions that Orson Welles used to do for US television and then Palin & Jones take revenge on their presumably horrid schooldays.
Tomkinson is having a miserable time at Graybridge public school, dispatched there by his mother so that she can enjoy rampant sex back at home.
The school has initiations for new boys such as being nailed to the wall, fighting the grizzly bear and spanking the headmaster.
Tomkinson tries to escape but he always get caught. He comes to the attention of the school bully who gets him to take part on a hopping race. However when the school bully gets an opportunity to be a bully at Eton, salvation of some kind emerges for Tomkinson.
It is silly, absurd, funny with lots of elements familiar to Python fans.
Ian Ogilvy shines as the school bully. He actually went to Eton so I guess his performance might be based on some personal experience.
The first episode is a riff on Tom Brown's Schooldays. It starts with a spoof of those introductions that Orson Welles used to do for US television and then Palin & Jones take revenge on their presumably horrid schooldays.
Tomkinson is having a miserable time at Graybridge public school, dispatched there by his mother so that she can enjoy rampant sex back at home.
The school has initiations for new boys such as being nailed to the wall, fighting the grizzly bear and spanking the headmaster.
Tomkinson tries to escape but he always get caught. He comes to the attention of the school bully who gets him to take part on a hopping race. However when the school bully gets an opportunity to be a bully at Eton, salvation of some kind emerges for Tomkinson.
It is silly, absurd, funny with lots of elements familiar to Python fans.
Ian Ogilvy shines as the school bully. He actually went to Eton so I guess his performance might be based on some personal experience.
The worst days of your life!
ShadeGrenade17 April 2014
Warning: Spoilers
I regret to say I missed this particular episode on its original screening. I caught it in 1977 when it prefaced the 'Ripping Yarns' series. For the uninformed, it was a comedy series - shot on film - starring Michael Palin, written by him and Terry Jones, and designed as a spoof of 'Boys Own' adventure stories. Palin and Jones were fresh from 'Monty Python' and it shows. 'Tomkinson' ( Palin ) enlists as a pupil at Graybridge school, a place so fearsome as to make Colditz castle seem like Butlins. Strict discipline is in force; boys are either shot or nailed to the walls as punishment, and the headmaster ( Palin ) is a pervert who loves a good caning. The school bully ( he has an office with 'School Bully' written on the door ) is 'Grayson' ( a pre-'Saint' Ian Ogilvy ), who regards Tomkinson as a 'snivelling little tick' and is determined to keep him in his place. Tomkinson makes several daring escape attempts, but each time is caught and brought back. Eventually, he experiences the ultimate horror - he is made to compete in an inter-school hopping race...
That's enough of the plot. To say too much more would spoil the fun. As you may have gathered, 'Tom Brown's Schooldays' is the main target here, with nods to the television series 'Orson Welles' Great Mysteries' and umpteen P.O.W. movies. Palin is on great form as both the fresh-faced 'Tomkinson' and the 'Bash Street Kids'-like 'Headmaster'. Jones makes his only 'Ripping Yarns' appearance is one of the teachers. Special mention must be made of Gwen Watford as Tomkinson's mother, whom butter would not melt in her mouth yet is followed everywhere she goes by randy, half-dressed men.
Funniest moment - Tomkinson wrestling the school bear! Second funniest moment - Grayson announcing he is leaving Graybridge to become the new school bully at Eton, as theirs has 'gone to join the government'! With Britain currently being run by the Bullingdon mafia, the joke is much funnier now than it was then!
That's enough of the plot. To say too much more would spoil the fun. As you may have gathered, 'Tom Brown's Schooldays' is the main target here, with nods to the television series 'Orson Welles' Great Mysteries' and umpteen P.O.W. movies. Palin is on great form as both the fresh-faced 'Tomkinson' and the 'Bash Street Kids'-like 'Headmaster'. Jones makes his only 'Ripping Yarns' appearance is one of the teachers. Special mention must be made of Gwen Watford as Tomkinson's mother, whom butter would not melt in her mouth yet is followed everywhere she goes by randy, half-dressed men.
Funniest moment - Tomkinson wrestling the school bear! Second funniest moment - Grayson announcing he is leaving Graybridge to become the new school bully at Eton, as theirs has 'gone to join the government'! With Britain currently being run by the Bullingdon mafia, the joke is much funnier now than it was then!
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