Chalk

- Season 1

(1997)

Newly-qualified Suzy Travis arrives to teach English at Galfast High school and finds the place in typical chaos. English master Mr Humphrey has been dead at his desk for a day and the solution of boorish,hyper-manic deputy Eric Slatt is to shut him in a cupboard. Confusion arises when Suzy discovers the headmaster is hiding in an identical cupboard and Slatt refuses to believe her. She is,however,befriended by nervous colleague Amanda Trippley and the admiring Dan McGill.

Slatt and headmaster Nixon are awaiting an interview panel for a job at a new school and Slatt sees it as his chance to escape Galfast and his wife Janet,the school secretary. Unfortunately the interview does not go well as,apart from his usual ineptitude,he impersonates a female colleague to impress a blind interviewer and is caught kissing him by the other panel members. It seems Nixon will get the job - until he turns up stoned out of his head after visiting the prefects' common room.

Suzy discovers that,in order to keep his job as a language teacher,Dan has invented a new tongue,Estransian,based on the non-existent country of Estransia,whose history he has taught to his class. During an after hours staff meeting pupil Gail Bennett locks all the teachers in the staff-room as a protest against human rights abuse in Estransia. A TV camera crew arrives to cover the event. Unfortunately Slatt is desperate for a pee and chooses to relieve himself out of the window as the cameras start to roll.

Pupil Helen Williams has an inexplicable crush on Slatt and comes to school with her new twins,both called Eric,claiming Slatt is the father. New young R.I. teacher Jason Cockfoster is shocked by this impropriety,the more so when Slatt loses his trousers and demands the young teacher give him his. Jason finds Helen's scrapbook in praise of her idol Pumpman but when the police and the real father arrive at the school it is clear from the trouserless Slatt's attributes that he is not the stud Helen claims him to be.

Galfast High is awaiting an inspection and Slatt is only too aware that the inspectors are looking to close down one of the area's schools. Thus,when a trio of inspectors arrives,it is unfortunate that there are no pupils because Amanda has sacked them all. The staff make frantic efforts to stall the inspectorate whilst the pupils are rounded up but fortunately Suzy uses a little psychology to persuade the inspectors that they are so stressed out that they are unable to see the pupils even though they are there.

It's the day of the staff versus students football match and Suzy is appalled to see Slatt use dirty tricks to nobble the pupils' star player. Whilst in his study she sees an urn with his mother's name on it and assumes she is dead but it is merely wishful thinking on Slatt's part as,when mother arrives at the school,she is the spitting image of Janet. With the head also assuming that mother is dead Slatt behaves even more bizarrely than usual - especially when,due to his list of exclusions from the side,he is the only member of the teachers' football team.