SERIES PREMIERE

It’s lovely to see Jack Whitehall acting his pale little butt off in a proper drama series, albeit one with a mainly comedic tone. He also gets that butt out in the opening sequence of this giddily enjoyable three-parter, adapted from Evelyn Waugh’s classic novel for television for the first time by James Wood

(Rev). Jack plays winsome posh chap Paul Pennyfeather, who gets thrown out of Oxford uni in the 1920s for that indecent exposure moment, when he was actually the victim of a prank by even posher bullies. In desperation, he gets a job at a rubbish public school run by David Suchet’s headmaster, where the teachers are routinely and mercilessly abused by the pupils. It’s a breezy, beautifully filmed opening episode, with a fine array of very well cast, amusingly eccentric characters – plus there’s added glamour provided by Eva Longoria as Pennyfeather’s love interest. Boyd Hilton