Harrow: a Very British School

Episode one
Prepare to meet your future prime minister. Or is that ‘the other place’? Probably. Still, this first in a new series offers a mildly intriguing insight into the kind of arcane traditions that prepare young men to see power and superiority as their birthright. Among the 14 ‘shells’ – or ‘new kids’, as us plebs might call them – there are a few very definite candidates for a chinese burn or two.

Still, the doc emphasises the boys’ frailty and isolation and the care that’s taken to integrate them into alien surroundings. Mainly, we focus on Dillon and Sachin. Dillon’s come all the way from Malawi therefore has every excuse for some next-level homesickness. Sachin’s only come from Leicester, but he too finds the transition difficult.

By the end, the pair are doing much better, but that’s predictable enough – this was clearly a film made with the complete cooperation of the school and we suspect that anything showing it in a less than respectful light would be considered very shabby form indeed.