SCHOOL PLAY by Frederick Raphael   1980

In this BBC TV rarity from 1980, based on the author's experiences as a boy at Charterhouse School in the late 1940s and early 1950s, all the schoolboys are played by adult actors, making it clear that in the author's opinion the authoritarian system operating within the public school is very much a microcosm of society in general.

In the caning scene illustrated here, a rebellious character played by Richard Morant is summoned from his dormitory after lights out by the senior prefects to be 'made an example of '. He is ordered to kneel on a chair and as the punishment proceeds the camera cuts to the reactions of junior boys laying awake in bed, who can clearly hear the proceedings as the sound of the cane echoes through the corridors.

Interestingly, this same Richard Morant played the odious bully Flashman in the memorable 1970s BBC TV version of Tom Brown's Schooldays. That series concluded with Flashman being found out and thrashed before the entire school by the headmaster.