The St Trinian’s series of films have long been a much-loved part of that British comedy tradition in which sexual innuendo and compromising positions are, if anything, rather more important than plot. The epitome of this cinematic sub-genre is, of course, the Carry On series. Yet though the Carry Ons may have run to a total of 29 movies, with a rather poor attempt at a revival in 1992, and the St Trinian’s series only made it to four, with an equally shoddy attempt to bring the series back in 1980, the St Trinian’s films were the blueprint. After all, the four originals – The Belles of St Trinian’s, Blue Murder at St Trinian’s, The Pure Hell of St Trinian’s and The Great St Trinian’s Train Robbery – ran from 1954 to 1966, while the first Carry On, Carry On Sergeant, only arrived in 1958.


Based on a series of satirical drawings by cult cartoonist Ronald Searle, revolving around what must surely count as the worst boarding school ever created, for the 1950s such a broad attack on established norms was a genuine shock. Showing schoolgirls as sexual creatures, with a predatory interest in men? Showing that the British public school system might not be quite the bastion of traditional values that everyone had assumed it to be?


Yet surprisingly, the first St Trinian’s film was not the first to launch such an attack on the establishment. Instead it was 1950’s The Happiest Days of Your Lives, set at a girl’s boarding school during the Second World War, where a group of boys end up having to share the facilities, with entertainingly predictable hijinks ensuing. It was a modest success, and also acted as the model for the St Trinian’s series, being produced as it was by the same people responsible for the later films and – in Alastair Sim, Joyce Grenfell, George Cole and more – featuring many of the same actors.


The end result was an iconic series which helped define an era – that transition from post-war austerity to teenage rebellion and sexualisation, and a gradual, cheeky loss of respect for the old guard of the establishment. But, of course, despite the subversion of some of the jokes and subject-matter the silliness – much as with the Carry On films – was mostly aimed at plain, simple, slightly risqué fun.


The revived St Trinian’s comes at a far less innocent time, where saucy innuendo seems so very passé that the long British tradition of seaside postcard humour has all but died. As such, it’s hard to work out quite what the target audience is for this movie – bar, perhaps, dirty old men keen to see an array of attractive young women (ranging from twentysomething popstars Girls Aloud and supermodel Lily Cole through to up-and-coming starlet Mischa Barton) dressed in kinky schoolgirl outfits.


But coming as it does at Christmas, the answer soon becomes clear – this is a big screen pantomime. It doesn’t seem obvious at first, but when you bear in mind that the headmistress of the school is played by a man – Alastair Sim in the original, Rupert Everett in this new version – and the silly plot is buoyed by quirky asides and set-pieces, backed up by a cast of familiar faces (here, the likes of Stephen Fry, Colin Firth, Celia Imrie, Anna Chancellor and Lena Headey). Comedian-cum-TV presenter and “sex addict” Russell Brand is in the Buttons role (otherwise known as cheeky, slightly seedy scam Flash Harry, originally played by George Cole) and adds a suitable sense of tabloid-friendly outrageousness to the proceedings – and also betrays the rather low ambitions. This is a low-key British film aimed squarely at a British audience. It is not aiming for global domination, merely for a few laughs over the festive season. In that, it achieves its aim perfectly adequately – but don’t expect any fresh additions to the St Trinian’s series any time soon.