Roy Kinnear
	Roger Sloman
	Nick Wilton

Written by Richard Hall and Simon Wright, Hardwicke House was a school-based sitcom made by Central Television in 1987. It was one of the first attempts to fuse the values of alternative and traditional comedy, taking the style of humour and subject matter that were typical of shows like The Comic Strip Presents... and Who Dares Wins, and presenting them in the format - and indeed the timeslot - of a straightforward ITV sitcom. Audiences clearly weren't ready for this, as the two episodes of Hardwicke House that made it to the screen were greeted with an overwhelming barrage of outrage from viewers and tabloid newspapers alike. In the midst of the overinflated controversy, ITV got cold feet and withdrew the remainder of the series, and the other five episodes remain unseen to this day.

Although there had been some previous attempts to introduce elements of the alternative comedy scene into the mainstream, Hardwicke House was the first programme to make a deliberate and concerted attempt to do so. The cast came from both ends of the comedy spectrum - including Roy Kinnear and Duncan Preston on one side and Kevin Allen, Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmonson on the other - and so did the production team. Producer Paula Burdon hailed from a more conventional sitcom-orientated background, and since Hardwicke House has gone on to produce such popular shows as Stuck On You and Outside Edge. Meanwhile, director John Stroud was well used to the extremes of alternative comedy, with his credits including work on Chelmsford 123, KYTV, The Last Laugh Before TV-AM, The National Theatre Of Brent Presents..., Spitting Image, Who Dares Wins..., and - most significantly - the anarchic children's ITV sitcom Educating Marmalade. There were some superficial similarities between the latter show and Hardwicke House, largely the educational theme and the idea of pitting unruly and ignorant children against hapless, ineffectual adults. Hardwicke House, however, was much stronger stuff. It was aimed squarely at an adult audience, and attempted to push its humour as far as this would allow while remaining within the well defined boundaries of the traditional sitcom format. Burdon and Stroud proved to be a truly effective combination, and if they were brought together in the hope that they might produce something provocative and daring, then they more than succeeded in this respect.

	Granville Saxton
	Tony Haygarth
	Gavin Richards and Duncan Preston

Hardwicke House was set in a modern comprehensive school, which had clearly been modelled on the 'problem schools' that were grabbing headlines and being held up as examples of the failings of Thatcherism at the time. It had a reputation as the least successful school in Britain, but even that dubious honour hardly does full justice to the true monstrous nature of Hardwicke House. The school is lawless and terrifyingly undisciplined, populated by unsalvageably dense students and teachers who are either ineffectual or psychotic. Headmaster RG Wickham (Roy Kinnear) has long since been driven to drink by the situation, living in hope of the day when he will be fired and finally allowed to escape, but finding that no matter how bad the situation gets, that day never actually comes. His deputy Paul Mackintosh (Roger Sloman) has an unhealthy interest in his young male charges, French mistress Cynthia Crabbe (Pam Ferris) is a hardened supporter of any given 'right-on' cause ("Ou est le cruise?" - "Le cruise est dans le silo a Greenham Common"), Dick Flashman (Gavin Richards) is a would-be wideboy whose only interests are taking it easy and having a good time, Harry Savage (Tony Haygarth) is the PE master of everyone's nightmares, and Moose Magnusson (Duncan Preston) is an Icelandic exchange teacher who has never been invited back to his home country. More terrifying than any of the above, however, is Herbert Fowle (the superb Granville Saxton), a sadistic English teacher who spent his days dreaming up ever more cruel forms of punishment, and who had twice murdered in his quest to climb the career ladder. Into all this madness walks Phillip Philpott (Nick Wilton, at the time also appearing in the In One Ear BBC2 transfer Hello Mum), an ordinary, earnest man who genuinely believes in the value of education and wants nothing more than to help his charges "get a good start in life". Needless to say, he finds it extremely difficult to achieve anything resembling that in his current place of employment.

Heading the pupils, meanwhile, is Slasher Bates (Kevin Allen). When the series opens, Slasher is in the process of assembling a new gang after his previous one all left school to join the Police. After holding auditions in the toilets, where he forced would-be recruits to prove their worth by eating raw liver ("but it's got pipes in!"), he amasses a new mob who achieve the rare feat of actually managing to be even stupider than he is himself. Nevertheless, Slasher is feared and revered throughout the school. He operates out of Wickham's office, and is frequently given enthusiastic support for his money-making schemes by the equally devious Flashman. The only member of staff that Slasher fears is Fowle, but then again it's hardly surprising that he would do. The school's head boy, Spotty (Paul Spurrier) is an oily bookworm who constantly sucks up to all of the teachers, often aligning himself to either Flashman or Fowle, but generally acting as right hand man to whichever member of staff happens to be nearest at the time. However, the head girl Donna (one-time Price Is Right hostess Cindy Day) couldn't be more different to spotty. She's an attractive blonde with a liking for skimpy and provocative clothing, and there is more than a hint of suggestion that she achieved her status through very illicit means indeed.

	Pam Ferris
	Kevin Allen

The characters were, by and large, the standard grotesques of school-based comedy. There was nothing new, for example, about a devious and ugly head boy, a flash and swankily dressed bully, or a vulgar and sadistic PE teacher. However, Hardwicke House rather ran with this idea, allowing its characters to become genuinely grotesque. The show was unrestrained by the sanitised atmosphere that pervades most sitcoms in a similar timeslot on ITV, and allowed its characters free reign to become naturalistic, if exaggerated, stereotypes. Practically every 'inoffensive' sitcom ever broadcast has featured a provocative and sexy schoolgirl character at some point. Hardwicke House dressed theirs in PVC gear and equipped her with an attitude that demonstrated that she knew full well what effect she was having on men, rather than disguising it all behind a veil of faux-naivety. Like the series itself, the characters were blunt, uncompromising, and far removed from the taste threshold of viewers who would normally have been watching at that time of the evening.

Fittingly, the storylines explored in the series were every bit as outlandish and extreme as the characters. For example, the second episode, 'First Day Of Term', opened with a security van coming under siege from a huge crowd of pupils as the panic-stricken drivers attempted to deliver the stationery supply for that term. They somehow manage to deliver it safely, but in the process their dog is stolen. Slasher, who has been observing events from a distance, is keen to get his hands on the stationery "before everyone spoils it all by using it to write with", but as the stock-cupboard is now under the supervision of Mr. Fowle, he finds he has a fight on his hands. Fowle and Spotty have anticipated the potential theft of their precious supplies, and have taken the precaution of electrifying the contents of the cupboard so that anyone who tries to steal anything under the cover of darkness will receive a massive shock - something that, in one of the most controversial scenes of the transmitted episodes, Fowle takes great delight in demonstrating to Spotty with the assistance of an unwitting first year girl. Using a combination of the stolen security dog and the trusty raw liver, Slasher and his gang join forces with an equally stationery-hungry Flashman to incapacitate Fowle and get their hands on his precious stock, which they are free to use for their own nefarious purposes. The episode ends with their victory, but like many elements of the episodes of Hardwicke House that actually made it to air, there is a definite suggestion that this incident could well be returned to as the storyline unfolds across the series.

Hardwicke House was given a high-profile launch, and it was clear that everyone involved expected it to be a huge success. The series was introduced by a substantial preview in TV Times and copious amounts of trailers. The first two episodes - the hour long pilot 'The Visit' and the first episode proper 'First Day Of Term' - were shown on consecutive days (24/02/1987 and 25/02/1987) in ITV's long-established 8pm sitcom slot. It has been suggested that the reason for this scheduling might have been that ITV anticipated problems with the series and were keen to clear it from the schedules as quickly as possible, but that seems unlikely. If they really were that unhappy with it, then they would have more likely hidden it away in a late-night slot and not adopted a policy that was practically guaranteed to draw attention to the series. Central were so convinced of the series' potential that they had already commenced work on a second run before the first had gone to air. As it transpired, this confidence and heavy promotion would backfire badly.

Transmitting Hardwicke House in a primetime mainstream timeslot was a bold move, and certainly one of the more interesting scheduling decisions of the 1980s, but ultimately the show was completely unsuited to the demands of its timeslot. Although the transmitted episodes proved to be very popular indeed with those who 'got' the humour, a substantial proportion of the viewing audience were not used to the excesses and extremes of the comic style and complained to ITV in their droves. To be fair, the timeslot normally played host to such wholesome fare as Duty Free and Fresh Fields, and although lazily watching a television programme for the sake of it without finding out anything about it first is hardly an action worth applauding, it must have been something of a shock to the system for viewers who were used to such harmless series to be suddenly confronted with humour of this nature. In retrospect, it's hardly surprising that they complained, and what is surprising is that ITV did not seem to anticipate this level of controversy. Adding weight to this were a number of people who took offence at the fact that the series dealt with such a contentious issue - namely the perceived declining standards and general failings of the educational system - in what they saw as a flippant manner, and complained that it was not a suitable subject for comedy. In the absence of any other national or international events to blow out of all proportion, the tabloid press picked up on the controversy and published hysterical front page articles demanding that the 'sick' series should be 'banned'. No matter how well Hardwicke House may have been going down with those who appreciated its style, it was up against some serious opposition.

	Old boys, Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson wreak terrible vengence on Kevin Allen

The third episode, 'Interview Day' (scheduled for 04/03/1987) would have introduced Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson as characters returning from Borstal with intent to regain their rightful position as official school bullies. But following the tabloid outcry, the episode was not shown, and the only public glimpse of its contents came courtesy of the inclusion of a giggly outtake featuring the duo intimidating Slasher on the Central VT Department's 1987 Christmas Tape (which has since been given heavy, albeit unannotated, rotation on all those 'Steve Penk's TVs Most Neil Morrissey Bloopers' shows). ITV announced that they were withdrawing Hardwicke House indefinitely, and although one more episode featured as a TV Times listing ('Prize Giving', 11/03/1987, which featured John Fortune and Bryan Pringle as guest stars), none of the remaining five were ever transmitted. Work on the second series was immediately cancelled by Central, and Hardwicke House was effectively finished for good. The tabloids and complainers were no doubt very pleased with themselves for five minutes, before they forgot all about Hardwicke House and went back to their real life world of problem schools and 'controversial' humour that lay safely out of reach in timeslots where they couldn't see it.

Roy Kinnear and Nick Wilton were extremely vocal in their criticism of the decision to shelve the series. Wilton remains very annoyed, pointing out that his character Mr. Philpott would enjoy far stronger episodes later in the run, and is still convinced of the worth and value of the series. Wilton's comments on the unscreened episodes are worth dwelling on, as they highlight one of the key strengths of what was transmitted. There are plenty of pointers towards events and situations that presumably would have arisen in future episodes of the series, and it would indeed have been interesting to see how Philpott continued cope with the school, and indeed to see Moose (a character whose appearances in the transmitted episodes are fleeting, but who has strong comic potential) given something more substantial to work with, or how Slasher and his gang would have risen to the challenges posed by Mayall and Edmondson's characters. Meanwhile, Kinnear died shortly after the furore about Hardwicke House, and his vitriolic indignance at ITV's rather cowardly behaviour represented what was effectively one of his final public appearances. Kinnear was a fine actor, and he deserves a far greater epitaph than for one of his last projects to remain unshown against his wishes.

It was claimed at the time of cancellation that the master tapes of the series had been wiped (an announcement which infuriated Roy Kinnear), but contrary to popular belief the masters of all seven episodes exist and reside with the rest of Central's archive. Quite why the wiping claim was made is uncertain, but it's possible that it may just have been stated to placate the tabloids and take some of the heat off the television company. Alternatively the tabloids themselves may have just made it up themselves. Whatever the case the ploy certainly worked, and even some members of the original production are still under the impression that the show had been obliterated.

A video release was proposed when the series was launched, and in fact the first volume of Hardwicke House got as far as being listed in some video trade catalogues, but the idea must have been abandoned very early on as the series was never even submitted to the BBFC for classification. A couple of people have claimed to have seen copies, but none have ever surfaced as far as is known.

There is a also a recurring rumour that the series was run in full - possibly partly unlisted in the schedules - in the Central region only, a year or two after the furore had died down. This was stated as fact in an early 1990s book on television sitcoms, and a couple of viewers with no particular reason to pull anyone's leg have claimed to have seen such a showing. To date nothing has surfaced to prove this, but then again nothing has surfaced to decisively disprove it either.

'First Day Of Term' can be viewed at the TV Heaven archive at the National Museum Of Photography, Film And Television in Bradford. The curators of the archive apparently wanted to acquire one of the unshown episodes for viewing purposes, but were told by Central that as the material hadn't been considered 'suitable for broadcast' back in 1987, they weren't entirely happy about the idea of anyone seeing it now. However, Central still offer all seven episodes for overseas sale (although it still hasn't been clarified whether they've actually been shown abroad), begging the question of why it's only seen as unfit for human consumption in the UK.

When viewed in a present day context, Hardwicke House has inevitably dated in some very noticeable respects. The theme music (by longtime Spitting Image musician Peter Brewis) is saxophone heavy Level 42-style jazz/rock fusion with that overwhelmingly 'clean' 1980s recording studio sound, and the very much of-their-time title sequence visuals bear an alarming resemblance to what might have been seen in a mid-1980s advert for Just Seventeen. Even some of the storylines have suffered somewhat with the passing of time. There's a large subplot about a visiting white South African diplomat sending his child to Hardwicke House to show that "we can be integrated with the darkies". At the time, humour that tackled this particular subject was both relevant and, arguably, still cutting edge and provocative. In these post-Apartheid days, however, it feels more like an outmoded relic from some strange alternate comedy universe. However, as much as some people might conceivably point to this as 'evidence' of why it's not really worth unearthing the series, this should not be an issue. Aside from the fact that sitcoms that are more dated on an equally superficial level are regularly given prominent repeat airings, the show should be judged on its comedic value alone - and in the case of Hardwicke House, there's more than enough comedic value to warrant further investigation of the series. The transmitted episodes give a sense of something that was just starting to take off, and would presumably have sustained and built on this initial momentum throughout the series. As it stands, though, the series was never given the opportunity to bear this belief out. And it's about time that it was.

Given the high profile that the series had during its semi-broadcast (both in terms of popularity and controversy), not to mention some of the performers involved, it's surprising how few people are even aware of the existence of Hardwicke House, let alone have any interest in seeing it in full. As far as is known the unshown episodes have never been bootlegged, while the series is usually relegated to cursory mentions in comedy books by writers who presumably couldn't be bothered finding out anything about the series for themselves. It's fair to say that it would not provoke anything like the same amount of controversy if it were to be shown now, not least in light of the fact that both Chalk and The Grimleys contained elements that were strongly reminiscent of Hardwicke House, and they both passed without a hint of tabloid outrage. Hardwicke House has not attracted the sort of notoriety more commonly associated with 'banned' films and television programmes, but that's actually a good thing. The only continued interest in the series has come courtesy of those who had the series yanked away in front of their disbelieving eyes, as well as the more curious and enthusiastic fans of some of the performers (there are plenty of Mayall and Edmondson websites, for example, that mention the series in a 'please tell us more about it' way), and it has not developed any kind of prurient following among those who only like such artefacts for their shock-horror-'censored' status. As such, it would be possible to watch and appreciate the series on face value, free of the unreasonably inflated expectations that normally dog anything that resurfaces after having been banned. All we need, really, is for someone to give us the chance to do so.