A play with a real feel-good factor, To Sir With Love, explores how a willingness to learn can transform the lives of teacher and pupils alike. The setting is post-war Stepney, the east end of London, in streets of bomb ruins, overcrowded homes and tenements. A Cambridge-educated man and ex-Spitfire pilot, Ricky Braithwaite (Ansu Kabia), has been sent by the local education authority to teach at a new secondary modern school run by an innovative and imaginative headmaster, Mr Florian (Matthew Kelly). Braithwaite is over-qualified and a reluctant teacher but he cannot find work as an engineer because of racial prejudice. The school is a microcosm of British racial attitudes of the day – enlightened liberalism, colour blindness, some ‘I’ve got nothing against them, but...‘, and outright bigotry.

This play is partly about racism, but more about prejudice in all its forms. Braithwaite is appalled at the behaviour of the working class kids, and cannot come to terms with Florian’s philosophy which includes no corporal punishment, a student council, and pupils writing regular reports on their teachers.  His journey during the course of the play causes him to learn the lesson of treating all his students as individuals, something that he wishes prospective employers would do to him.

It is a slushy play, and even if you haven’t seen the iconic 60’s movie, the final scene is telegraphed from some distance. However some of the lines are laugh-out-loud funny and there are some uplifting dance interludes which fit perfectly with the flow of the story. These were performed by a mixture of the touring company and local Oxford performers (a community cast is assembled at each theatre on the tour). A solid cast do well with some of the more polemic aspects of the script, particularly Nicola Reynolds as the feisty home economics teacher Clinty, and Harriet Ballard (Monica) and Heather Nicol  (Pamela), two of Braithwaite’s teenage tormentors. It would have been nice to see more of Kelly who is a delightfully genial, if slightly bonkers, headmaster, and Kabia comes into his own as Braithwaite learns to unbend and really teach.

This is an engaging story, and a fascinating slice of social history. My attention wandered when the actors were prevented from becoming interesting three dimensional characters by a rather clunky script intent on delivering a message. The oft-repeated mantra of creative writing classes is ‘show, not tell’ and this adaptation did let down the powerful story sometimes. It also felt like some of the cast were struggling to come to grips with both the Stepney dialect and cut-glass English and it was getting in the way of their performances. However the costumes and staging were spot on and this is an entertaining night out. The production company have been funded by the Arts Council to create works which bring a diverse audience to the theatre and encourage families to attend, and this is a good play to fulfil that aim.