Alfred Prufrock "Alfie" Wickers is the main protagonist of Series 1-3 of the BBC Three comedy series Bad Education and it's 2015 film adaptation. He also serves as one of the protagonists of the 2022 reunion special alongside Stephen Carmicheal and Mitchell Harper.
He was portrayed by Jack Whitehall (who also portrayed MacGregor Houghton in Jungle Cruise). The late Archie Lyndhurst portrayed a younger Alfie in the Series 3 episode "The Exam".
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Alfie was born on 17 June 1988 to Martin (whose surname was Stool but for some reason took his wife's surname instead) and Mrs. Wickers. Some years after Alfie's birth, his parents separated and his mother moved to Spain to live with her new husband Javier and had children with him.
Alfie attended a posh school called Middleton House where he was bullied by the other pupils and staff. Alfie was part of the school's Irish Dancing team and showed a great talent for it. The team's teacher Mr. Humpage considered Alfie to be his most promising student and planned for him to concur Broadway and then the world with his Irish Dancing. However, in his second year at the school, Alfie decided to quit the team, which earned him an enemy in Mr. Humpage, who held a grudge against Alfie for his decision and blamed him for shattering his dreams.
When he was 15, Alfie participated in The Regional Qualifiers of The British Under 16's Human Chess Tournament. However, during the game, he lost his footing and knocked down his schoolmate Atticus Hoye (who was also taking part) in the process and ended up with a broken leg.
On his 18th birthday, Alfie went to Studham Adventure Park where he lost his nerve on a zip wire and wet himself above people having a picnic.
Sometime after this, Alfie inherited his grandfather's Volvo after the latter passed away from lung failure.
Bad Education[]
Alfie is a 23-year-old man, who has recently graduated from university and has been given a job of being a History teacher for the Form K students at Abbey Grove, a secondary school in Hertfordshire.
Alfie tries to do things to look cool in order to impress the school's Biology teacher Rosie Gulliver, whom he has a romantic feelings for. They later have an on/off relationship.
Alfie often turns to his class (the most notable being Stephen Carmicheal, Mitchell Harper, Joe Poulter, Rem Dogg, Chantelle Parsons and Jing Hua) help despite them usually disapproving of his actions. Of all the pupils in his class, Alfie is closest to Joe, whom often finds himself being roped into helping Alfie out. Alfie also gets unwanted attention from another pupil in his class called Chantelle, who has a crush on him.
Alfie also appears to have good relationship with the school's headmaster Shaquille "Simon" Fraser (who considers himself to be Alfie's best friend), though can be annoyed by his immature behaviour and attempts to act cool. He did not have a good relationship with the deputy head mistress Isobel Pickwell and her successor Professor Celia Green, who started a relationship with Alfie's father Martin, whom she later married before walking out on him and taking all his money, forcing Martin to live in his car before moving in with Alfie and Rosie. Martin then took over as deputy head.
In the series two episode "The American", Alfie is replaced as History teacher by an American man named Kevin Schwimer and was placed in charge of another class 2J instead. Later in the episode, Alfie and Jing exposed Kevin as a fraud who was not from America but Dudley, resulting in Alfie getting Form K back.
Alfie also did not get on with a pupil named Frank Grayson, who would belittle Alfie and force him to things such as give him his shoes and have him buy him and his friends cider after Pickwell confiscated it from them. The two later end up living together, much to Alfie's dismay after Martin begins a relationship with Grayson's mother. However the relationship breaks down after it seemed that Mrs. Grayson's beloved dog Coco was accidentally killed whilst in Martin's care (fortunately, Coco was revealed to be alive and well). Afterwards, Alfie and Frank's relationship improved.
In the series 3 episode "After School Clubs", Alfie briefly joined Rosie's book group and learnt that her ex-boyfriend was a member. At first, he thought that it was a man named Orlando, before later learning that it was in fact an older man in the group named Richard, who was Rosie's lecturer at university. In the following episode "Sports Day", Alfie competes with Richard in the parent/teacher race at Abbey Grove's sports day where he discovers that Richard has been taking viagra with the hope of becoming Rosie's friend with benefits. Afterwards, Alfie's relationship with Rosie becomes strained after believing that she is still in love with Richard.
In the final episode of series three "Prom", Alfie, unable to cope with bidding farewell to Form K who are graduating, quits his job and goes to work in a DIY shop. However due to not getting along with the other staff in the shop, Alfie quits and goes to Abbey Grove's prom, much to Rosie and the students happiness, before returning to his classroom and has a final conversation with his students before giving then an individual farewell. After the students have left the room, Alfie tearfully watches a slideshow they made for him. At the end of the episode, which takes place at the start of Abbey Grove's autumn term, Alfie is shown to have decided to return to teaching at the school and is dating Rosie again. The episode ends with Alfie preparing to teach the new students of Form K.
Alfie reappears in the 2022 reunion special (which takes place 7 years after series 3) where he is shown to still be working in Abbey Grove and is teaching of a new class of Form K students, whom he has little control of. He is soon joined by Stephen, who is now working as a drama teacher at the school, who reveals to the class that Alfie is having a careers day at the school and has invited the other former Form K students back for a reunion and wishes for Alfie and the class to keep quiet to them about him being a teacher (as his former classmates think he is now successful in show business). Alfie later has a Zoom call with Rosie, who is in Lebanon teaching migrants. Afterwards, Alfie is joined by Mitchell (who now works as a delivery driver and is about to become a father), Joe (who now works in a care home), Chantelle (who is now a mother to a daughter named Alfrida), Frank (who is now a Buddhist) and Rem Dogg (who is now a bitcoin millionaire). Alfie also tries to persuade Abbey Grove's new headteacher Bernadette Hoburn about letting him take a sabbatical in order to join Rosie in Lebanon, but she instead has him join her senior leadership team for the next term. At the careers day event, Alfie does a speech at the students about some of the former students who could not make to the event and attempts to show a slide show of the former students, only to find that his slides have been replaced by one of celebrities and controversial figures (which had been done as a prank by one of the newer Form K students Inchez) before watching his former students talk about their careers and witnesses Stephen storm off after he is exposed as a teacher to his old classmates by his students and Bernadette. Sometime later, Form K wrap Alfie in bandages and lock him in the class's replica Egyptian casket, but he is later freed by Stephen and Chantelle. When Bernadette confronts Mitchell (who had been made Abbey Grove's new P.E. teacher) over why the students are drunk and wearing wristbands, Alfie takes the blame and is fired by Bernadette, which Alfie does not mind. Later, Alfie phones Rosie to tell her that his departure from Abbey Grove and that he would be joining her in Lebanon. When questioned by Rem Dogg on why he took the fall for Mitchell, Alfie says that he heard that Mitchell wanted the teacher job and felt that it was the right thing to do. He also says that listening to his old students career stories made him realise that he had to follow his heart. Alfie then tells Mitchell that he is going to be a great teacher and tells Stephen that to remember that he is going be a superstar, but in the meantime, there is a captive audience in his classroom waiting to be inspired. Alfie then parties with his old students and the current students of Abbey Grove.
Alfie (dressed as a Hobbit, as he did in "After School Clubs") appears on a mural in Abbey Grove's playground in the first episode of Series 4 "Rivals".
Alfie is later mentioned in the second episode "Whodunnit" by Stephen who says that the only Alfie got his class to concentrate was playing Class Wars.
The Big Night In[]
In 2020, Alfie appeared in a short sketch as part of the BBC telethon The Big Night In to support those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the sketch, Alfie gave out tips for homeschooling (e.g. giving Geography and Maths as subjects (as he believed they were not needed) as part of time management). He also had zoom calls with Fraser and Anthony Joshua.
Trivia[]
- Alfie is a fan of Michael Buble. In the Christmas special, he is given Buble's Christmas album by Rosie as a Christmas present.
- In the Series 2 episode "Drugs", Alfie is also revealed to be a fan of Olly Murs and the boy band Five. In the same episode, it is mentioned by Rosie that Alfie took an anti-depressant after hearing that Five had broken up.
- In the Series 2 episode "Swimming Gala", it is revealed that Alfie has a chlorine allergy, which results in his eyes swelling up if he goes into swimming pools with chlorine in them unless he wears goggles.
- As mentioned by Rosie in the Series 3 episode "After School Clubs", it took Alfie a year to read '"Charlotte's Web.