Hope and Glory is a BBC television drama about a comprehensive school struggling with financial, staffing and disciplinary problems, and faced with closure. It starred Lenny Henry as maverick "Superhead" Ian George, enlisted to turn around the school's fortunes. It was created by Lucy Gannon, who had previously created Soldier Soldier, and was inspired by a real head teacher named William Atkinson, who had turned around a secondary school in London which had been placed into special measures.
Plot
Ian George, the head of an exclusive school, is asked to take a look at Hope Park Comprehensive School, which is in special measures, and asked to confirm its closure. When he visits the school, he's greeted by disaffected students and teachers alike. The sixth form centre was derelict after it was torched a few years previously, and the music room is full of expensive equipment, unused because the school could not attract a music teacher. The outgoing head breaks down during his farewell speech and delivers an emotional rant against the students, telling them how worthless they are. After meeting staff and pupils at the school, in particular pupil Keeley Porter and teacher Debbie "Debs" Bryan, Ian George believes there is some hope for the school. He is offered help by the chair of governors, whose son died young and would have been at the school. Ian turns down a Governmental job to take over as the new Head. With the help of Deputy Head "Debs", George rectified these issues. He identified the talents of rebellious students, and the music equipment was finally used. Romances developed between Ian and Debs, and Tony and Sally. Philip Whitchurch played Derek, the chair of governors, who was desperate to save the school. The refurbished and replenished library was subsequently dedicated to his dead son. The Chief Education Officer was played by Richard Griffiths.
The four episodes of the second season were transmitted before the summer holidays, with the third series and final six episodes transmitted in the autumn of the same year.
Series 3
Reception
The series attracted mixed reviews. Writing in New Statesman David Jays says that Lucy Gannon's characters are sharpened by indignation, and "sorrow rounds them in the Dickensian manner". He also praises the show's use of classical music, rather than "second guessing youthful tunes and getting it cringingly wrong". The Observers Caroline Boucher praised Gannon's "speedy character establishment" and Henry's "convincing" portrayal. Adam Sweeting in The Guardian was more critical, suggesting it is "old-fashioned melodrama", unfavorably contrasting Gannon with celebrated writers such as Jimmy McGovern and Alan Bleasdale. The use of classical music was "disorienting", and Sweeting suggests that "maybe education is too pressing and prickly an issue to be liquidised into soap opera, with its inevitable clichés and illogicalities." Writing in the Financial Times, Christopher Dunkley says the drama has "moments of interest", although Joe Joseph in The Times was very critical of the first series.
Home media
All three series were released on DVD on 15 May 2006. A compilation audio CD featuring some of the classical music used in the first series was released on 1 October 1999.
