Simon is always late for school. He doodles in class, smokes in the bogs, resents authority figures and is a complete ass when it comes to girls. But here's the twist: he's a member of staff. In Teachers, a new Channel 4 series, the format of the school drama is thrown up in the air. This is a very different beast to Jimmy McGovern's Hearts and Minds, where teachers were forever discussing government education policy during morning break, or Lucy Gannon's Hope and Glory, where staff hit the bottle and, occasionally, pupils. In Teachers, as in This Life, North Square and Attachments, the professional setting informs, rather than dictates, what happens to the characters. The school is an excuse for the drama, rather than its point, and at a time when Labour's attitude to state education is a hot political topic, Teachers seems almost wilfully unaware of the issues.
'The series is open to so much abuse because of the subject matter,' says Andrew Lincoln, who sprang to fame as Egg in This Life, and now has a lead role in Teachers as Simon. 'It'll be a target: people will say it's irresponsible TV. But you've got to see it for what it is, a lighthearted look at the lives of a few people. It's just about gags, basically.'
He's right. And they're great. There are overtones of David Lodge here, and of Lucky Jim: The feckless, ambivalent protagonist finds himself trapped in an institution and has to puzzle his way through it, without much common sense to help him along. With its genial teens and profound lack of interest in Ofsted reports, paperwork and underfunding, Teachers may be pure escapism, but the writing is pin-sharp, the direction often touched with genius, and the show is further distinguished by a breezy lack of sentimentality.
Since sentimentality tends to be as intrinsic to the genre as chalk and bad food, the three writers (Tim Loane, Julie Rutterford and Andrew Rattenbury) have done well in avoiding the usual scenes of fat kids being bullied or broken spectacles on the gymnasium floor. The students aren't the ones having the problems in this show: instead, they're all reserved for Simon, an English teacher fresh out of training college who is having difficulties adapting to his sudden elevation into a position of responsibility. At 27, he is a very reluctant adult indeed.
'I never, ever thought of anyone else for the part,' says Jane Fallon, executive producer, who first worked with Lincoln on This Life. 'We didn't talk to anyone else, we just went straight to Andy, and luckily he was able to do it. Simon, on paper, could be very irritating. We needed someone who could make him more than that, who could make him boyish, charming and funny, and I knew Andy could do it.'
Lincoln liked the idea as soon as Fallon approached him, but he was anxious about how it might come across, so he asked his older brother to have a look at the script. His brother, who teaches RE and philosophy at a school in Surrey, loved it. 'If he'd thought it was offensive, taking the piss, I wouldn't have done it. But he read it and said it was just a laugh. He said, "Oh do it, it's great, it's not saying anything about the school system!" The school isn't a real school: it's a heightened, trippy, dreamy, oddball place.'
No kidding. In the world of Summerdown comprehensive, bells and rules no longer count. Simon, who would rather be seen as a dude than a beak, gets stoned with his pupils, is humiliated when a new girlfriend turns out to be a copper, and hands out textbooks in the pub in order to get his essays marked in time. There's a lot of editorial skittishness, narrative detours into fantasy sequences and imaginary outcomes, as pioneered in Dream On and finessed in Ally McBeal; but the whimsy count is thankfully low. Much of this boils down to Lincoln's ability to play a character whom you warm to, against your better judgment. Lincoln describes Simon as 'a jerk, frankly. He's Woody Allenesque: self-obsessed, juvenile, refusing to grow up. He's so neurotic, and yet charming at the same time'.
One might assume that by the end of the series, Simon has wised up a little, but Lincoln, who is optioned for a second series, assures me this is not the case.
'He doesn't! That's my dilemma. But then again, how many people do evolve? How long does it take someone to get out of adolescence? Some people never leave it. But it is a key question, where would the second series go?'
When a character central to a TV drama refuses to grow or learn, audiences tend to get restless. The recent slump of interest in Ally McBeal is a case in point: what was initially novel and engaging soon turns deathly dull, and not even a broadening of focus, taking in Ally's agonisingly wacky co-workers, can get that show on the road again.
But the omens for Teachers are more promising because Simon is surrounded by colleagues - wry confidante Susan; twin geeks Brian and Kurt; and Jenny, his icy nemesis - who might shine if allowed a more prominent role.
'I think the other characters need to be developed more,' agrees Lincoln. 'That needs to happen, otherwise people may get bored.' But for now, at least, boredom is not on the curriculum. A big gold star.
• Teachers starts on Channel 4 on Wednesday 21 March
