FRIDAY 30 SEPTEMBER
Entertainment
Rock School
9:30pm - 10:00pm
Channel 4
VIDEO Plus+: 35363
Subtitled
1/7
In a week packed with good new shows, Rock School is one of the funniest and most endearing. Gene Simmons, frontman with the staggeringly grotesque rock group Kiss, fetches up at Christ's Hospital, a boarding school in West Sussex, to teach a class of 13-to 14-year-olds how to be "rock gods". The twist is that Simmons has six weeks to turn them into a band proficient enough (if that word can be applied here) to support Motorhead. The kids in the school's adapted Tudor uniform, which rather makes them look like tiny medieval witch hunters, are charming and delightful. Simmons, who looks like a giant bluebottle, gets his class stomping before he auditions his group for a lead singer. He's surprisingly perceptive and you suspect that his reasons for making an unusual choice are quite touching and have nothing to do with any actual ability.
RT reviewer: Alison Graham