A guide to school life for tiny pupils and their parents

Down With Skool!

Geoffrey Willans was born and educated in England and spent time not only as a tiny pupil but also as an extremely perceptive school-master. After active service during the Second World War he joined the BBC as a feature writer. He died in 1958, at the age of 47. Ronald Searle was born in 1920 and educated at the Cambridge School of Art. He was a hugely successful graphic artist and pictorial satirist, and also the creator of the wonderfully wicked St. Trinians. He died in 2011, at the age of 91.

If headmasters were honest a prospectus would be a book which sa how many kanes he hav, contane a warning about the skool dog and the amount of prunes and rice served during the term. 
 
Nigel Molesworth may not be the best student St Custard's will ever have, but he is certainly able to express his feelings about his beloved school - not to mention botany walks and foopball. With his handy guide to Masters at a Glance (Know the Enemy) and Lessons (chiz chiz) and How to Avoid Them, no noble brave fearless etc. boy will ever have to suffer at the hands of the 'swots, bulies, milksops greedy guts and oiks' ever again WIZZ.

A guide to survival in the 20th century for felow pupils, their doting maters, pompous paters and any other who are interested

Whizz for Atomms

With one mad yell the mob, armed with stumps and bits torn from desks, surge away down the pasage, trampling the masters under foot. A buket of water fall on GRIMES and the term end in a series of wizard rags and japes. Cars arrive, driven by parents with drawn, white faces. 
 
Nigel Molesworth is dragging St. Custard's into the 20th century in the company of 'felow pupils, their doting maters, pompous paters and any others who are interested', via the Elizabethans and the Wild West. Most importantly, he has some important lessons in how to treat Girls, what to do with a tee-vee, what a holiday will really involve, and how to survive the uranium age that is sure to hit any time now. CAVE!

A guide to Success for tiny pupils, including all there is to kno about SPACE

How to be Topp

All skools make some sort at teaching the pupils things and the headmaster pin up a huge timetable of lessons ect. which make the heart sink when you look at it. 
 
Nigel Molesworth is back, this time taking the tinies in hand and showing that they can survive the first term - as long as you avoid the prefects and show all due respect to Molesworth 1. Back to Skool might be particularly hard on Mater and Pater, but think of those poor new bugs, forced to be their best at Latin, English, foopball and French (Armand in his striped shirt and feeble questions). Just follow his timeless advice, however, and you too could be Topp.

Back in the Jug Agane

I need hardly tell you the esential thing about a football i.e. nobody need tell me to get rid of it. i do not want it in the first place. Wot is the use of having a soaking wet piece of leather pushed at you? Give me a hadock every time, at least you can eat it. 
 
Poor Nigel Molesworth is back at St Custard's, being snarled at by Grimes and forced to endure the good old footer season. But despite the distractions of hideous Molesworth 2 and weedy fotherington-tomas, he will still share all his secrets to passing exams and being a grown up. But what's this? A resolution to be good? And to luv gurls? Is this the end of the Nigel Molesworth known and loved by millions - or will he be bored by teatime?

Molesworth

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School is 'wet and weedy', according to Nigel Molesworth, the 'goriller of 3B', 'curse of St Custard's' and superb chronicler of fifties English life. Nothing escapes his disaffected eye and he has little time for such things as botany walks and cissy poetry with an assortment of swots, snekes and oiks. Instead he is very good at missing lessons, charming masters and putting down little brothers, in fact he is exceptional at most things except spelling. Wildly funny and full of sharp observations on life, the &lsquo;Molesworth tetralogy&rsquo; is magnificently complemented by the illustrations of Ronald Searle

Geoffrey Willans

Simon Brett

Griff Rhys Jones

Willie Rushton

Clive Swift

Penelope Nice

Full Cast

Down with Skool!, How to be Topp & more

A collection of BBC readings and dramas celebrating the much-loved schoolboy terror 
 
First featured in five books by Geoffrey Willans, with cartoon illustrations by Ronald Searle, Nigel Molesworth is one of the funniest comic creations in literature. A superbly satirical chronicler of 1950s England, he influenced a generation with his anarchic take on life. 
 
These wonderfully entertaining recordings show the self-proclaimed 'curse of St Custard's' at his very best. In Down with Skool! & How to Be Topp, based on the first two Molesworth books and read by Griff Rhys Jones, he gives us the lowdown on the Head Beak, masters, bullies and lessons - and offers his inimitable advice for tiny pupils on how to survive the first term. 
 
Simon Brett's sequel, Molesworth, finds the onetime 'goriller of 3B' now all grown up. Middle- aged and still surrounded by many of the characters from his youth, he's as keen as ever to share his wisdom. Across four episodes, he presents a guide to the home, the office, the arts and leisure. Willie Rushton stars in this full-cast drama, with a cast including Clive Swift and Penelope Nice. 
 
Topping off our collection is The Molesworth Report: How to Be Topp, a celebration and philosophical assessment - ahem! - of Nigel Molesworth by some of his fondest fans. 'I couldn't live with someone who didn't enjoy the Molesworth books', says the poet Wendy Cope. John Walsh, Sir Tim Rice and Russell Davies also pay tribute to the world-weary, ink-spattered schoolboy, whose comic misspellings, mangling of English and Latin and detestation of swots, snekes and oiks gave the world a cache of unforgettable images and catchphrases. 
 
Credits 
 
Down with Skool! & How to Be Topp 
Read by Griff Rhys Jones 
Abridged by Wendy Cope 
Based on the books by Geoffrey Willans 
Produced by Susan Roberts 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 13-21 August 1991 
 
Molesworth 
Molesworth - Willie Rushton 
Grimes - Clive Swift 
Louise - Penelope Nice 
Gillibrand/Darryl - Robert Harley 
Peason/Grabber - Bob Sinfield 
Fotherington-Thomas - Phil Nice 
Arabella/Carole/Lucinda/Lady Eiderdown - Chrissy Roberts 
Written by Simon Brett and based on characters created by Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle 
Music by Oonagh Bernon 
Produced by Mark Robson 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 23 March-13 April 1987 
 
The Molesworth Report: How to Be Topp 
With Wendy Cope, John Walsh, Sir Tim Rice and Russell Davies 
Produced by Penny Arnold 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 13 May 2004 
 
Cover illustration by permission of the Ronald Searle Estate 
© 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

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