Written by Margaret Simpson. Tx 13th February 1979

It’s the day of the school play, Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and Joseph (Andrew Stanton) is feeling the pressure.  But is he really sick or is it just nerves?  But even though Andrew seems a little listless, others continue to put maximum effort into ensuring that everything goes right on the right.

None more so than Tucker, whose artistic side is displayed after he customises a bike to serve as Joseph’s chariot.  But his well-intentioned efforts to ensure that everything is perfect means that he decides to skip Mr Keating’s maths class to finish off working on the bike – which naturally doesn’t go down very well with the intimidating teacher.

This is the first real chance we’ve had to see Mr Keating at work.  Robert Hartley is spot on at portraying the type of teacher that every school seemed to have – you just know there would never be any disruption in his class as he’d have no qualms in issuing detentions to any miscreants.  He does so to Tucker when he tracks him down and after the boy complains that this means he’ll miss his tea, Mr Keating remorselessly tells him that he’ll just have to miss his tea!

Aside from enjoying a lengthy acting career, from the early 1950’s to the early 1990’s, he also spent the latter part of his career, during the 1980’s and 1990’s, composing music for various television series (including all fourteen episodes of the Keith Barron vehicle Haggard).

If Andrew’s complaints of feeling sick and his flat-as-a-pancake singing in the final rehearsals aren’t enough to drive Mr Sutcliffe to despair, then there’s worse to come.  Jackie Heron and her friends, having been irritated at being put into detention by Miss Summers, decide to wreck the props and costumes for the play.  Tucker’s chariot is damaged and paint is thrown over the coat of many colours as well as the scenery.

It’s Tucker who discovers the devastation, closely followed by Mr Sutcliffe who instantly decides that Tucker must have been responsible.  Thankfully, Miss Summers also turns up and is able to convince Mr Sutcliffe that there’s no way that Tucker would have done this – he certainly wouldn’t have damaged his own bike, not after all the hard work he put into it.

James Wynn has some good comedy moments in this scene. They work especially well since Mr Sutcliffe is usually a rather laid-back person – but with everything collapsing in disaster around him, the increasing irritation he feels (only compounded when he sits down on Tucker’s chips!) rings the changes somewhat.

As might be expected, it all works out fine in the end – Tucker repairs the bike and he manages to find a replacement coat.  Although it comes as a surprise to his mother when she realises that Tucker’s taken one of her coats without asking.  But as so often with Peter Jenkins, she regards him more with indulgence than irritation.