Bad Education returns for an extra special musical-themed Christmas spectacular, starring Layton Williams, Charlie Wernham, Mathew Horne and Vicki Pepperdine alongside the cast of Class K as they’ve never been seen before. Featuring original songs and choreography to tell a Dickens-inspired tale, Jack Whitehall returns for a special Christmas cameo as Alfie Wickers with an unmissable musical theatre performance.
On the last day of Christmas term at Abbey Grove, drama teacher Stephen (Williams) stages his own funeral to hear what the school will say about him when he leaves for his new job in a pantomime. But he is shocked to encounter the ghost of Alfie, who tells him he will be visited by three ghosts to show him the error of his ways.
Alfie wants Stephen to care about teaching more than he ever did; but his happiness depends on the lessons he learns that night, when Stephen has an important decision to make about his career at Abbey Grove.
Bad Education: A Christmas Carol airs on Â鶹ԼÅÄ Three and Â鶹ԼÅÄ iPlayer from 13 December at 9pm
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Q&A with the Cast
The Christmas episode this year is full of things we haven't seen before in Bad Education. What can you tell us about it?
Jack Whitehall: The Bad Education Christmas special is an all-singing, all-dancing Christmas spectacular. It was originally my idea, but Layton in particular has done a lot of the heavy lifting when it came to delivering my vision. I am tone deaf and have two left feet, so we really let him take front and centre with this episode, and it's a wonderful opportunity for him to shine.
And obviously Alfie is back, albeit slightly differently than viewers might expect. It's always fun to drop back in, if for no other reason, than even if I only appear in the show for five minutes, I'm just magically number one on the call sheet, which means that Layton has to be number two, and it's good to keep his ego in check for another year! So that's why I like to make sure that I have a fleeting appearance in Bad Education with each new series just to make sure that Layton doesn't get too big for his boots!
Layton Wiliams: Oh, my God, I have been rooting for a musical episode from day dot, as you can imagine. So we finally got the moment. We're doing a play on A Christmas Carol and of course, I'm Scrooge. For most of the massive dance numbers, I'm watching Mitchell and the kids in Class K dance about.
It was so magical and I was so proud of them, they properly committed to it and I'm really excited for people to see it because you're seeing people in a different light. Like Jack Whitehall singing and dancing - ish. I would say ish! And Mat Horne, he killed it. I just remember being like, I'm witnessing Mat Horne jump and sing about in his crazy wig, what more could you want for Christmas?
Charlie Wernham: From series one Layton always said I just want to do a musical episode of Bad Education. As someone who doesn't sing or dance, I would have been happy to sit this one out, but actually we worked out a way where Mitchell was in his own story. We thought about what Mitchell's dream Christmas would be and it was like a Die Hard Christmas. So we ended up having two ends of the spectrum, the singing and dancing and then Mitchell running around beating up German foreign exchange students, and that coming together and colliding is really fun.
But also, the Class K kids are super talented, they're all triple threats so seeing them throw themselves into the musical numbers was amazing. And I feel like it's sort of Mitchell's hero moment, even though I don't do a lot. So I feel a little bit smug for that episode to be honest. There's a whole song about Mitchell, which I absolutely love. I don't think Stephen's got his own song. I like to rub that in a little bit.
Vicki Pepperdine: It's a funny retelling of A Christmas Carol which brings back characters from past series, including Jack Whitehall. Hoburn is the Ghost of Christmas Future, clad in a ludicrous outfit which definitely ranks up there with the most absurd costumes I've ever worn in a show!
And how much fun was it to film?
Mat Horne: We had a lot of fun because there are big choreographed sequences with dancing and musical numbers. It's always fun filming a Christmas special in the middle of summer. It's just been really enjoyable seeing the whole show go up a level, it's just wonderful.
Ali Hadji-Heshmati: We all really loved doing the dance. Our choreographer Shay Barclay was so patient particularly because, other than Laura, we weren't too great. We're all really excited to share it because we’re so proud of it.
Anthony J Abrams: It was definitely one of my favourite episodes to film because we had to do a musical number. We spent a lot of time learning all the choreography with Shay Barclay who's just amazing. We just had so much fun rehearsing. We all really loved it.
Francesca Amewudah-Rivers: It was a standout moment of the shoot, especially working with Shay Barclay, our choreographer, and the incredible dancers who helped us realise the Christmas episode. It was also really amazing to see all of us actors grow as artists while being thrown into the deep end. We definitely bonded as a team filming that episode.
What was your favourite part about creating the Christmas special this year?
Freddy Syborn (Showrunner): We've got some song and dance numbers in the Christmas Special, which I love. It’s just a really good example of where our show has gone, especially with Layton as one of our new leads, obviously that's us tailoring the show to the strengths of our lead performers. And so that feels like a really exciting new discovery that we’d have never done 10 years ago.
But also everyone loved doing it and it was a pleasure to shoot. I think if you feel the joy of the performers and the excitement of the people making the programme that comes through the screen. So we've tried to make more of the things that people love.
Meet the Bad Education Cast
Layton Williams - Stephen Carmichael
Layton began his career at the age of 12 playing Billy Elliot in the West End production and he made his debut TV appearance as Kylie in the Â鶹ԼÅÄ comedy Beautiful People. Theatre Credits include Jamie in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie and film credits include Rocketman; The Bad Education Movie and‘Everybody's Talking About Jamie. Layton is currently a contestant on the Â鶹ԼÅÄ’s Strictly Come Dancing 2023. He also recently narrated the hit Â鶹ԼÅÄ Three LGBTQ+ dating show, I Kissed A Boy, as well as appearing in BAFTA-nominated I Hate Suzie and Greg Davies’ The Cleaner.
Charlie Wernham - Mitchell Harper
Charlie is best known for his leading roles in Bad Education, EastEnders and Hollyoaks. Charlie can most recently be seen in the HBO series The Baby, directed by Nicole Kassell.
Vicki Pepperdine - Bernadette Hoburn
Vicki is a BAFTA and British Comedy Award nominated actress and writer who co-wrote and starred as Dr Pippa Moore in the multi-award-winning Â鶹ԼÅÄ Four sitcom Getting On. She exec-produced on the HBO adaption of the show, reprising her role as Dr Moore in the episode "Am I Still Me?". Pepperdine has appeared in numerous TV shows including Camping, I’m Alan Partridge, We Hunt Together and The Windsors, in which she plays Princess Anne and she also co-hosts the award winning podcast Dear Joan and Jericha.
Mathew Horne - Simon Fraser
Mathew is best known for playing Gavin Shipman in the Â鶹ԼÅÄ comedy Gavin & Stacey alongside James Corden and Rob Brydon. He is currently starring in Noises Off! in the West End. Mathew has recently appeared in the film Bolan’s Shoes alongside Timothy Spall. Other credits include his role in the feature film Nan: The Movie with Catherine Tate and also leading UKTV Gold’s Newark, Newark.
Ali Hadji-Heshmati - Warren
Ali can recently be seen as a series lead in Lockwood & Co created by Joe Cornish for Netflix. Prior to this, Ali starred as the recurring role of Abs Shah in Holby City for the Â鶹ԼÅÄ and as the role of Javid in Alex Rider for Sony Pictures Television and Amazon Studios.
Laura Marcus - Jinx
Laura has recently appeared as one of the leads in her debut feature The Great Escaper with Glenda Jackson and Michael Caine. She has recently finished filming on The Serpent Queen as a new series regular, and is currently filming The Jetty for Â鶹ԼÅÄ One, as part of the leading cast. Laura was awarded the ‘Best Writer’ at The BFI Future Film Festival for her short film The Massive F*cking Bender with The Evening Standard placing her as 'one to watch'.
Anthony J Abraham - Inchez
Anthony booked his first role in 2019 for Hulu series The Great, as well as his film debut for Â鶹ԼÅÄ Films The Phantom of the Open, starring Academy Award winner and Academy Award nominee, Mark Rylance and Sally Hawkins. Anthony’s other credits include Theodosia for HBO Max, ITV series Tell Me Everything, and the fourth season of Amazon Prime series Jack Ryan.
Asha Hassan - Usma
Asha made her professional screen debut in the multi-award winning feature film Rocks. Asha is currently filming a new drama for ITV and she will play the title role in the upcoming Film4 short Salma, produced by Slam Films (Stephen Mangan and Louise Delamere), which follows a teenager living in Grenfell Tower.
Bobby Johnson - Harrison
Bobby can be seen in the upcoming Stephen Spielberg produced Apple TV series Masters of the Air. He trained as an actor at The Miskin Theatre, Dartford and continued his training for one-year at Arts Educational Schools in Chiswick, West London.
Francesca Amewudah-Rivers - Blessing
Francesca is a British Ghanaian/Nigerian actor, musician and composer. She was a recipient of the 2021 Evening Standard Future Theatre Award and trained with the National Youth Theatre REP Company. Francesa has been involved in productions including School Girls (Lyric Hammersmith), Macbeth (Shakespeare’s Globe), and ‘Antigone’ (Mercury Theatre).