Clive Merrison credited as playing...
The Headmaster
- Headmaster: There's a vacancy in history.
- Tom Irwin: [Thoughtfully] That's very true.
- Headmaster: In the school.
- Tom Irwin: Ah.
- [talking about Tom Irwin]
- Headmaster: He comes highly-recommended.
- Mrs. Lintott: So did Anne of Cleves.
- Headmaster: Who? He's up-to-the-minute, more "now".
- Mrs. Lintott: [dryly] Now? I thought history was "then".
- Headmaster: Ah, Irwin! Splendid news!
- [pops the cork of a bottle of champagne]
- Headmaster: Splendid news! Posner a scholarship! Dakin an exhibition! And places for everybody else!
- [cops a feel of Fiona's bum]
- Headmaster: It's... it's more then one could have ever hoped for! Irwin you are to be congratulated! A remarkable achievement! Oh and, you too, you too Dorothy of course, you, ah, laid the foundation.
- Mrs. Lintott: Not Rudge headmaster.
- Headmaster: Not Rudge. Oh, dear.
- Tom Irwin: He said nothing, the others have all had letters.
- Headmaster: There's always an outside chance. It's a pity, it would have been good to have a clean swoop.
- [Rudge appears at the door, but only seen by Mrs. Lintott]
- Headmaster: Still as I've said all along, you can't polish a turd.
- Mrs. Lintott: [Rudge leaves and Mrs. Lintott takes after him down the hallway] Rudge!
- [Rudge stops and turns around]
- Mrs. Lintott: You haven't heard from Oxford?
- [Rudge shakes his head]
- Mrs. Lintott: Perhaps you'll hear tomorrow.
- Rudge: Why should I? They told me when I was there.
- Mrs. Lintott: I'm sorry.
- Rudge: What for? I got in.
- Mrs. Lintott: How come?
- Rudge: How come they told me, or how come they took a thick sod like me?... I had family connections.
- Mrs. Lintott: [incredulously] Somebody in your family went to Christ Church?
- Rudge: In a manner of speaking, my Dad, before he got married he was a college servant there. This old, parson, who just been sitting there most of the interview, suddenly said was I related to Bill Rudge who was a scout in staircase seven in the ninety-fifties. So, said he was my Dad, and they said I was the kind of candidate they were looking for. Mind you I did do the other stuff, like Stalin was a sweetie and Wilfred Owen was a wuss. They said I was plainly someone who thought for himself, and exactly what the college rugger team needed.
- Mrs. Lintott: Are you not pleased?
- Rudge: It's not like winning a match.
- Headmaster: So the upshot is I am glad he handled his pupils' balls because at least that I can categorise.
- Headmaster: Fuck the Ren-ai-ssance! And fuck literature, and Plato, and Michaelangelo, and Oscar Wilde, and all the other shrunken violets you people line up. This is a school, and it isn't normal!
- [about Hector]
- Headmaster: On enquiry I find his pupils know all the words of "When I'm Cleaning Windows".
- [talking about the school]
- Headmaster: We're low in the league. I want to see us up there with Manchester Grammar, Haberdasher Askes, Leighton Park... or is that an open prison?