Mr. Bean participates in an adult education center's open house, where he schools the students and teachers alike and, ultimately, is schooled himself.
The tone in this one is a little less consistent than in some others, as the final segment involves an unlikely series of events through which Bean's car is unceremoniously mowed over by an army tank. This event is treated with a level of pathos not often seen in the series. Bean is himself quite crushed at the sight of his beloved yellow cooper mini (itself something of a supporting character throughout the series) flattened and mangled.
The combination of Rowan Atkinson's silent performance, emoting Bean's shock and grief through nothing other than face and gesture, and Howard Goodall's almost impossibly sympathetic scoring is really quite affecting. The playback audience, as captured on the laugh track, sounds slightly taken aback and uncharacteristically subdued, as if not entirely sure how to process the moment.
What's even weirder is that this comes directly after a genuinely outrageous and uproarious segment in which Bean steals back his own trousers, having accidentally swapped clothes with another man in a changing room following a P.E. class. Again, Goodall's incidental score is distinctive and sublimely helps to create the fabric of the moment. And again, Atkinson's performance sells the outright ridiculous.
The other highlight is somewhat of an anomaly within the series: perhaps the only occasion on which a guest star is, in her own way, as memorable a character as Bean. For the most part, the job of the supporting cast in these episodes is to be the straight man/woman/person to Mr. Bean's antics (this also means they represent the average observer--i.e. us, the audience, as we might respond if we came across someone acting like Bean in real life situations). This is quite effective, as far as it goes.
Playing an uninhibited and tactile Francophone drawing instructor, Suzanne Bertish holds her own beautifully opposite Bean. She comes within a whisker's breadth of stealing her scenes, but still leaves enough space for Atkinson's character to regain control. Bertish's character is (relatively) refreshingly unfazed by Bean's eccentric behavior, perhaps because she's equally otherworldly in her own right. More to the point, she's almost unthinkably funny.
Given that Bean is and always will be Atkinson's show above all else, this is especially admirable. The sauce is a blend of comic timing and a remarkably full-bodied realization of the character (similar to what Atkinson does, actually). The resulting performance is both bold and expertly balanced.
So there are highs and lows here. The ending is a bit of a downer. Its jarring and uncharacteristically sharp tonal shift doesn't necessarily pay off. But where it excels, it has no equal. Mr. Bean's voyage into further education ultimately produces a masterclass in visual performance and sketch comedy, regardless of its occasional aspirations to a larger character arc.
Howard Goodall is the (ironically) silent partner in the realization of Bean. The composer seems to be intuitively synchronized to the character, inside his head even. This metronomic accuracy drains no emotional dynamic, but does make for some uncanny resonance between the visual images (primarily Atkinson's) and the Goodall's running instrumental commentary. Given Bean's (deserved) reputation as a visual comedy, the importance of the music is both self-evidently fitting and subtly ironic.
The tone in this one is a little less consistent than in some others, as the final segment involves an unlikely series of events through which Bean's car is unceremoniously mowed over by an army tank. This event is treated with a level of pathos not often seen in the series. Bean is himself quite crushed at the sight of his beloved yellow cooper mini (itself something of a supporting character throughout the series) flattened and mangled.
The combination of Rowan Atkinson's silent performance, emoting Bean's shock and grief through nothing other than face and gesture, and Howard Goodall's almost impossibly sympathetic scoring is really quite affecting. The playback audience, as captured on the laugh track, sounds slightly taken aback and uncharacteristically subdued, as if not entirely sure how to process the moment.
What's even weirder is that this comes directly after a genuinely outrageous and uproarious segment in which Bean steals back his own trousers, having accidentally swapped clothes with another man in a changing room following a P.E. class. Again, Goodall's incidental score is distinctive and sublimely helps to create the fabric of the moment. And again, Atkinson's performance sells the outright ridiculous.
The other highlight is somewhat of an anomaly within the series: perhaps the only occasion on which a guest star is, in her own way, as memorable a character as Bean. For the most part, the job of the supporting cast in these episodes is to be the straight man/woman/person to Mr. Bean's antics (this also means they represent the average observer--i.e. us, the audience, as we might respond if we came across someone acting like Bean in real life situations). This is quite effective, as far as it goes.
Playing an uninhibited and tactile Francophone drawing instructor, Suzanne Bertish holds her own beautifully opposite Bean. She comes within a whisker's breadth of stealing her scenes, but still leaves enough space for Atkinson's character to regain control. Bertish's character is (relatively) refreshingly unfazed by Bean's eccentric behavior, perhaps because she's equally otherworldly in her own right. More to the point, she's almost unthinkably funny.
Given that Bean is and always will be Atkinson's show above all else, this is especially admirable. The sauce is a blend of comic timing and a remarkably full-bodied realization of the character (similar to what Atkinson does, actually). The resulting performance is both bold and expertly balanced.
So there are highs and lows here. The ending is a bit of a downer. Its jarring and uncharacteristically sharp tonal shift doesn't necessarily pay off. But where it excels, it has no equal. Mr. Bean's voyage into further education ultimately produces a masterclass in visual performance and sketch comedy, regardless of its occasional aspirations to a larger character arc.
Howard Goodall is the (ironically) silent partner in the realization of Bean. The composer seems to be intuitively synchronized to the character, inside his head even. This metronomic accuracy drains no emotional dynamic, but does make for some uncanny resonance between the visual images (primarily Atkinson's) and the Goodall's running instrumental commentary. Given Bean's (deserved) reputation as a visual comedy, the importance of the music is both self-evidently fitting and subtly ironic.
