What makes this film worth a watch is the considerably effective evocation of a nation in transformation, and of the smaller human story at its heart. A plummy Home Service voice-over from cricket commentator John Arlott describes the turbulent inner emotions of Alan 'Quack-Quack' Duckworth as he makes the fraught transition from childhood to post-war adolescence.
One of the film's pleasures is it's comforting nostalgia for times past. Traffic-free Suburban streets, roses in the front gardens, the pervading smell of creosote and carbolic is well suggested here, and there are some great observations on the passing of the old order (The School Headmaster laments on his war-time romance with English teacher Miss Land, consigned to history now that there are younger men back from the war) and a knowing mockery of Quack-Quack's naive belief in post-War Festival of Britain-era optimism, with its United Nations, Teas-Maids, Esperanto and Cricket.
The school setting is a big plus for all viewers of a certain age; the cruelties of children, the awakening sexual urges, life's great mysteries and the ennui of a summer term in a losing battle with the approaching holidays. The adult world, as observed by writer Jack Rosenthal, is represented by either up-tight pedants and martinets, for example Miss Land, or as weak hypocrites, like Tommy, Alan's hero of such theatres of human conflict as Dunkirk, El Alamein, The Battle of the Bulge and Burma, who turns out to be a deserter. The climactic end-of-term play is one of the most banal ever, rightly jeered by the schoolkids, but the adult world they're aping is banal too, as Alan belatedly comes to realise.
Daydreamer Alan's infatuation with Ann and his thwarted attempts to secure a kiss is easy and enjoyable to identify with, but generally the girls come off rather badly: Ann rejects her conservative suitor and is herself rejected by the object of her curiosity, Alan. Miss Land is freed from one complication, only to be (we are led to believe) doomed to repeat it because of her unchecked sexual appetites.
The writing is engaging, the direction assured, and while the acting is a little TV-drama standard, the stand-outs are Alison Steadman's prim but voracious Estelle Land and Alan's schoolmates, Abbo and Shaz. My favourite line comes during a canalside game of cricket, when an over-excited Quack-Quack enthusiastically hits the ball for six to the watery boundary and a collective groan goes up from the outfielders. Abbo dryly observes 'We're going to have to move that canal'. Sublime.
One of the film's pleasures is it's comforting nostalgia for times past. Traffic-free Suburban streets, roses in the front gardens, the pervading smell of creosote and carbolic is well suggested here, and there are some great observations on the passing of the old order (The School Headmaster laments on his war-time romance with English teacher Miss Land, consigned to history now that there are younger men back from the war) and a knowing mockery of Quack-Quack's naive belief in post-War Festival of Britain-era optimism, with its United Nations, Teas-Maids, Esperanto and Cricket.
The school setting is a big plus for all viewers of a certain age; the cruelties of children, the awakening sexual urges, life's great mysteries and the ennui of a summer term in a losing battle with the approaching holidays. The adult world, as observed by writer Jack Rosenthal, is represented by either up-tight pedants and martinets, for example Miss Land, or as weak hypocrites, like Tommy, Alan's hero of such theatres of human conflict as Dunkirk, El Alamein, The Battle of the Bulge and Burma, who turns out to be a deserter. The climactic end-of-term play is one of the most banal ever, rightly jeered by the schoolkids, but the adult world they're aping is banal too, as Alan belatedly comes to realise.
Daydreamer Alan's infatuation with Ann and his thwarted attempts to secure a kiss is easy and enjoyable to identify with, but generally the girls come off rather badly: Ann rejects her conservative suitor and is herself rejected by the object of her curiosity, Alan. Miss Land is freed from one complication, only to be (we are led to believe) doomed to repeat it because of her unchecked sexual appetites.
The writing is engaging, the direction assured, and while the acting is a little TV-drama standard, the stand-outs are Alison Steadman's prim but voracious Estelle Land and Alan's schoolmates, Abbo and Shaz. My favourite line comes during a canalside game of cricket, when an over-excited Quack-Quack enthusiastically hits the ball for six to the watery boundary and a collective groan goes up from the outfielders. Abbo dryly observes 'We're going to have to move that canal'. Sublime.