Lambert had a meeting to decide the director. They selected Chris Morahan, who had directed Frayn's Chekov adaptation Wild Honey on stage and had recently directed Jewel in the Crown for TV. Filming took eight weeks in June and July 1985 in Hull, Shropshire and Birmingham. Reception On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 80% based on 5 reviews. Halliwell's Film Guide awarded it one star from a possible four, stating "what was intended as an escalating climax of comic chaos falls away as the script runs out of steam, but the nation's need for comedy ensured box-office success". Radio Times reviewer John Ferguson awarded it three stars out of five, stating "Cleese finds it difficult to be unfunny and he unravels here much like Basil Fawlty, from a simmering starting point to a climax of epic proportions. Perhaps because of Cleese's background in TV comedy, the picture is less a narrative than a series of sketches, plus some rather awkwardly placed propaganda about public and private education in that far-off land called Mrs Thatcher's Britain." He concluded that it was "entertaining fare" but "doesn't stand comparison" with Cleese's next comedy film, A Fish Called Wanda (1988). Film writer David Harkin stated that "on its original release, some of the more quaint and colloquial English humour failed to find an international audience, which Cleese would remedy in his next film by importing American stars and adding a much brasher style of comedy into A Fish Called Wanda". Although popular in Britain, the film only played art houses in the US. This prompted Cleese to make A Fish Called Wanda to be accessible to American audiences, to "get out of the art houses" there. Cleese later recalled "there was a scene where I had to make a call from a public phone booth. None of the phones worked and I had to go from booth to booth with increasing fury before I found one that did. In England, that scene got a big laugh because no one here expects the phones to work. But it played to total silence in America, where they all expect to get through on a phone the first time." References External links 1986 films 1986 comedy films British comedy films EMI Films films Films about educators Films directed by Christopher Morahan Films scored by George Fenton 1980s English-language films 1980s British