St. Berks

St. Berks is a BBC children's radio drama set in the fictitious English School of St. Berks.Particularly noteworthy is that it was the first ever BBC digital commission - Because it would also be available for download on the internet, new royalty contracts had to be drawn up as there was no way of knowing how many times each episode would be "broadcast".

St Berks has been serialised on BBC Radio 4 and the digital station BBC Radio 7. It was written by Richard Megson and Dave Washer, and stars Elliott Nicholls, Rosie Wilkinson, Tom George, James Rawlings, Sean Connolly.

Characters

Pupils at St. Berks

Preston Paul Patrick Price- Main character

Albert Scheinstein - His friend. A real brainbox- practically knows everything about everything.

Hilda and Matilda- Twins who always speak in unison.

Tall Tina- A girl who towers above her classmates.

Jemima- A girl on whom Preston has a crush.

Teachers

Edith Concrete - Headmistress

Mr. North - "Nasty Nigel North", class teacher of Preston and his friends. His identical twin brother, Neil North, takes over from him for a short period while he is ill. Mr. North is a draconian teacher, whereas Neil is nauseatingly nice. They are identical twins, which makes the students think that Mr. North has had a dramatic change of character, until they see them together.

Another teacher, Mr. South, is referred to, but never appears.

Other characters

The Queen appears in the series, with two corgis, Kylie and Britney.

The Mayor of Berktown

Mr. Slab- Owner of the local concrete factory

Mr. Root- A summer camp owner

Basher Baines- A bully from a neighbouring school- he and his cronies terrorise Preston's gang.

Episodes

The show was serialised for the BBC Radio 4 programme, Go 4 It, and told in its entirety on the Big Toe Radio Show on BBC 7 for the Super Sunday Story. The serial ran as follows.

Episode 1- On a trip to the concrete museum, Albert Scheinstein works out a theory to make concrete stronger, and is hailed as a hero. He becomes rich and snobbish, spurning his old friends. But everything goes wrong when it is discovered that the concrete smells of old socks. Everyone turns against him, and he loses all his wealth. Albert tries to make it up with his friends. They are reluctant, especially Preston, until Albert's rubber concrete saves them from a car crash- then everything is forgotten.

Episode 2- The class think Mr. North has become nice, but it turns out to be his twin brother, who is as different in temperament from his brother as he could possibly be. He makes learning fun through musical geography and trampolining trigonometry, but their fun lessons don't last long- Mr. North returns, badder than ever.

Episode 3- The gang go to a summer camp. They discover that their arch enemy, Basher Baines, and his cronies, are there too. Mr. Root serves them some delicious food, but Mr. North throws up and passes out on discovering what was in the sausages. With Mr. North out of action, Mr. Root proceeds to scare the students with campfire ghost stories. Basher Baines has more scares in store for them.

Episodes which did not feature on Go4it;

The students are given the honour of decorating the Queen's palace. Things go wrong when Mr. North accidentally uses one of the Queen's beloved Corgis as a paint-roller. He is locked in the tower, the Queen vowing that he will never see the light of day again. The episode ends here, but it is not the final episode, so we are left to assume that the students sprung him from jail.

Valentine's Day episode.