Eric Slatt

Eric Slatt (David Bamber) is the deputy headmaster of Galfast High, who seems to "deepen the many crises that face the school (most of Slatt’s own making)".

Real World Reaction to the Character
Jeff Evans, writing in the The Penguin TV Companion, observed that "Slatt is certainly keen, but regrettably he is also unbalanced, tactless, clumsy, snobby, sarcastic, at times pointlessly aggressive and always prone to appalling errors of judgment (an academic version of Basil Fawlty, it was widely noted)". The Independent commented: "Chalk is in the idiom of sadistic farce: disaster begets catastrophe begets apocalypse, and they all engulf Slatt. There are inevitable echoes of other sitcom characters - a dash of Basil Fawlty's unquenchable apoplexy, a slice of Gordon Brittas's purblind monomania - but Slatt's entanglements are caused by his own cocktail of failings." Nicola Walker commented that viewers sympathise with Slatt because he is in charge of a bunch of lunatics. Moffat told The Herald that Slatt was inspired by a real person:

"My main character, the deputy head, is a manic git, and he's based on a guy I never actually met and is therefore being denigrated terribly. He had already retired by the time I started but I used to get a lift to work from his wife, who still worked there. And she would tell me stories about him with the affectionate disdain of anyone who has been married for more than a year. In the staff room, all these bitter teachers who hadn't been promoted would describe him as someone who would only briefly consider stopping short of invading Poland if he got the chance. I've since found out that the real man is actually a very nice bloke."

Ptaszynski had attempted to persuade his friend Angus Deayton, who wanted to move into more acting roles away from Have I Got News for You, to play Slatt. The producer reflects that Deayton would have brought a more "sardonic" element to the character. The cast regularly teased David Bamber during rehearsals, speculating upon how Deayton might have performed a particular line or sequence.