The comedian plays a teacher who takes a
Job at a Nazi-sympathising Bexhill school on the cusp of the second world war
Eddie Izzard,
comedy genius and heroic campaigner for the European cause, is bizarrely miscast in a deadpan-serious acting role for this weird, strained, second world war spy melodrama inspired by a stranger-than-fiction true story. The transgender star switches back here to what Izzard has playfully called “boy mode” for a boy’s-own-story in the style of John Buchan or Erskine Childers, or maybe one of Michael Palin’s Ripping Yarns, though with the jokes and comic self-awareness systematically removed. It’s a muddled, unrelaxed tale from Izzard as co-writer and co-producer, whose dramatic gears keep slipping, and which is never entirely sure where our sympathies should lie.
Related: Eddie Izzard: 'I'm just trying to create a space for myself'