Alice and David Chaplin, and all their friends, know what is best for their children – a good education, in a good school, where good children are pushed to excel, complemented outside school by good extra-curricular activities such as ballet, music, French conversation, museums and theatre. It’s a bubble, a comfortable middle-class bubble. But it is about to burst for the Chaplins.
Their daughter, Molly, is due to leave her private prep school, Spencer House, and start secondary education. The ‘only’ place to go is the exclusive, fee-paying, Chelsea College. But it has high standards to maintain, and an entrance exam needs to be passed. Now, Molly is bright and intelligent and has, in common with all her friends, a private tutor to boost performance, but she has a ‘problem’ with exams. She does poorly in a mock test and continues to flunk practice papers at home. With her whole future on the line (according to Alice), and Battersea Comp beckoning, drastic measures are needed.
Alice’s plan is a recipe for disaster, and O’Farrell charts the unfolding chaos with characteristic humour, all the while taking mocking swipes at the helicopter parenting of the middle class.
It all works very
well, treading the fine overlap between the farcical and the credible. And,
being O’Farrell, the moral message comes through by the end to provide a funny
and feel-good read.
