Simon Gray's writing has a certain subtlety that means the tragedy can creep up on you unexpectedly. His 'dramody', Quartermaine's Terms, set in a 1960s foreign language school in Cambridge, despite some laugh out loud moments, is quite depressing and quietly tragic, in a very British way.

The seven teachers who flit in and out of the staff room over a period of 18 months are variously examples of unfulfilled ambition, missed opportunity, the jilted, the lonely and the put-upon.

There is one particular poignant moment when St John Quartermaine (Rowan Atkinson) has been let down by a colleague and supposed friend and for a second he aches with loneliness and rejection. But the problem is, it is just a moment.

Gray's tragedy is wrapped up in a very 60s style comedy and much of the humour is derived from that traditional British social awkwardness and ultra politeness that just seems a bit dated. Quartermaine, at one point, ends up with three invites for the same evening because he's too polite to say he's otherwise engaged and new teacher Derek Meadle (Will Keen) spends much of the first scene trying to cover up the fact he has ripped a hole in the seat of his trousers - it's just hackneyed.