REVIEW: John Godber's Teechers at Harrogate Theatre

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Lauren Crisp is a book editor, writer and keen follower of arts and culture. She reviews theatre and cultural events in and around the district in her spare time.

You can contact Lauren on laurencrispwriter@gmail.com. 

First performed in 1987, John Godber’s comedy Teechers is on a revival tour, reset for a post-Covid era.

A play-within-a-play, we meet three school leavers – Gail (Jo Patmore), Hobby (Sophie Suddaby) and Salty (Levi Payne) – as they use their BTEC Performing Arts exam to act out their experiences at Whitewall Academy, a struggling inner-city school in East Yorkshire with a failed Ofsted report.

Beyond the central trio, the actors go on to shift between more than 20 roles, from frazzled teachers to unruly students, using just simple accessories, an array of amusing impersonations, countless character voices and some transformative physical comedy.

Jane Thornton’s direction results in something fast-paced and furiously energetic, a multi-role ride only broken by injections of lively, modern music and speedy dance numbers to indicate scene changes.

Relying little on a scant set of just a few desks, lockers, bags, boxes and a clothes rail, this play is all about its role-hopping cast and quick-witted script. In breaking the fourth wall, the play is not only funny but has a grounded sense of social realism.

Much of the play’s focus is on Miss Nixon, played by Suddaby, a drama teacher who changes the kids’ lives for the better, but who finds herself facing burnout. Central to the play’s social message is her eventual decision to leave Whitewall for a role at a private school.

Originally a drama teacher himself, Godber’s play is both a love letter to the profession and a rallying cry for change in our education system – one that is increasingly challenging for teachers, fraught with inequalities and a lack of funding, and where the arts are undervalued. 

As the school year reaches its end, the play concludes with music from the Bugsy Malone score. “We could have been anything that we wanted to be” becomes a sober swan song, lamenting past possibilities and lost opportunities.

Teechers is on at Harrogate Theatre until Saturday 30 May. The tour continues in Reading (2-13 June) and Bath (28 July-1 August).