This is the story of important 19th Century educationalist and Headmaster Dr.Thomas Arnold's effort to stamp out some of the less desirable traits in the exclusive Rugby School of that era, including bullying, gambling, and drinking. A well intentioned if sanitized version, a small pity the "good" boys all look so angelic and scrubbed up. In Alex Pettyfer we have a John Howard Davies lookalike. Davies played Tom Brown in the 1951 film, and Pip in David Lean's "Great Expectations". Overall its good clean fun and suited to television. Christopher Fry tries hard to bring some credibility to the Headmaster and largely succeeds, while Joe Beattie as the unpleasant bully Flashman is perhaps a little less effective. Not as dark as the novel suggests, often the lyrical settings are at odds the drama, certainly not a Dickensian approach. But full marks for trying to show the making of a man in Victorian England.
Review of Tom Brown's Schooldays
