From Miss Trunchbull to Mr Chips: top teachers on stage – in pictures

A new production of Alan Bennett’s Forty Years On has Richard Wilson playing the headmaster. Take a look at theatre’s best school staff through the years

Main image: Fiona Shaw in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie at the Lyttelton, 1998 Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian

  • Richard Wilson’s disgruntled headmaster faces a difficult last day – and a role in the riotous school play – in Forty Years On.
    Richard Wilson’s disgruntled headmaster faces a difficult last day – and a role in the riotous school play – in Forty Years On.

  • Bertie Carvel plays the monstrous Miss Trunchbull, centre, in the RSC’s musical adaptation of Roald Dahl’s supernatural schoolgirl story Matilda.
    Bertie Carvel plays the monstrous Miss Trunchbull, centre, in the RSC’s musical adaptation of Roald Dahl’s supernatural schoolgirl story Matilda.

  • Richard Griffiths (right) as another Alan Bennett creation, the inspirational sixth-form teacher Hector, in The History Boys at the Lyttelton theatre in 2004.
    Dominic Cooper, James Corden and Richard Griffiths in The History Boys at the Lyttelton, 2004.

  • Elisabeth Moss (left) and Keira Knightley play teacher friends threatened by a pupil’s lie in The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman at the Comedy theatre, London, in 2011.
    Elisabeth Moss (Martha Dobie) and Keira Knightley (Karen Wright) in The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman at Comedy Theatre, London, directed by Ian Rickson, 2011

  • Alan Rickman (right) as the bad-tempered tutor Leonard in Seminar at the Golden theatre, New York, in 2011.
    Seminar starring Alan Rickman and Jerry O’Connell, The Golden Theatre, Broadway, 2011

  • Nikki Amuka-Bird as Ms Evitt faces a classroom mutiny by eight-year-olds in God Bless the Child at the Royal Court, London, in 2014.
    Nikki Amuka-Bird (Ms Evitt) in God Bless This Child by Molly Davies at Royal Court, Jerwood Theatre Upstairs. directed by Vicky Featherstone, 2014

  • A gift transforms an unlikable public-school teacher, played by Nicholas Farrell, in Terence Rattigan’s The Browning Version at the Minerva, Chichester, in 2011.
    Liam Morton (John Taplow) and Nicholas Farrell (Andrew Crocker-Harris) in The Browning Version by Terence Rattigan from the double bill South Downs and The Browning Version at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester, 2011

  • Carpe diem! Jason Sudeikis is unconventional professor Keating at an all-boys prep in Dead Poets Society at Classic Stage Company, New York, in 2016.
    Jason Sudeikis in Dead Poets Society

  • Strict deputy head Mr Briggs (Mark Moraghan) and caring Mrs Kay (Pauline Daniels) herd a school trip to the zoo in Willy Russell’s musical Our Day Out at the Royal Court, London, in 2010.
    Mark Moraghan and Pauline Daniels in Our Day Out The Musical, Royal Court, 2010

  • Robert Meadmore and Richard Freeman in wartime musical Goodbye Mr Chips at the Chichester Festival theatre in 1982.
    Goodbye Mr. Chips starring Robert Meadmore and Richard Freeman, 1982 at the Chichester Festival Theatre

  • Fiona Shaw as the charismatic yet toxic star of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie at the Lyttelton theatre, London, in 1998.
    Fiona Shaw in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie at the Lyttleton, 1998

  • Ann Ogbomo plays Jo, a beleaguered headteacher on Sats results day in School Play at Southwark Playhouse, London, earlier this year.
    Ann Ogbomo plays Jo, the beleaguered headteacher on Sats results day in School Play at Southwark Playhouse, London.
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