St. Trinian's (franchise)/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Trivia about St. Trinian's (franchise) includes:

  • Actor Allusion: In the 2007 film: Not only did Annabelle Fritton attend Cheltenham Ladies' College before being involuntarily transferred by her father to St. Trinian's, so did her actress, Talulah Riley (attend Cheltenham, that is; St. Trinian's doesn't really exist).
  • Inspired By: St. Trinnean's School in Edinburgh, established by Miss C. Fraser Lee in 1922 and operated on an extremely relaxed theory of educational freedom. Ronald Searle created the first of the St. Trinian's cartoons after meeting the daughters of a couple he knew, who went to the real school. He tried tried to imagine what kind of school would produce the pair of pre-teen hellraisers, and created a British institution.
  • Mythology Gag: Several in the 2007 Continuity Reboot.
    • The bust that Annabelle shatters is of Alistair Sim, the actor who portrayed Miss Fritton in the earlier films.
    • Similarly, the painting in Miss Fritton's office is also of Sim.
    • The animated heist plan mimics the artistic style of Ronald Searle, whose cartoons inspired the films.
    • The uniforms the Posh Totties wear to the School Challenge are based on the uniforms from the earlier films.
    • A deleted scene has a ministry official suggest "Let Those Wildcats Beware" as a news headline for the Minister's plan to make St. Trinian's an example; this is a reference to Wildcats of St. Trinian's. Thwaite shoots it down as stupid, which may itself be a reference to how bad Wildcats was.
    • At least one of the pictures the camera pans over in the Art Room is based on one of the original Searle drawings (The original caption to which is "...And this is Rachel, our Head girl.")
  • Saved From Development Hell: For some unknown reason there was a 14-year gap between the fourth St. Trinian's movie (The Great St. Trinian's Train Robbery, 1966) and the fifth (The Wildcats of St. Trinian's, 1980). But there's no mystery why there was a 27-year gap between Wildcats and the sixth (St. Trinian's, 2007); Wildcats was reportedly so dire that it's the only one not available on DVD.
  • Shout-Out: The 2007 film is rife with them:
    • Pride and Prejudice gets a lot:
      • Many of the cast have some connection to P&P: Colin Firth was Mr. Darcy and Anna Chancellor (Miss Bagstock) was Miss Bingley in the 1995 miniseries; Talulah Riley (Annabelle) was Mary Bennet in the 2005 film version; and Gemma Arterton (Kelly) was Elizabeth Bennet in the 2008 miniseries Lost in Austen.
      • Miss Fritton's dog is named for Mr. Darcy.
      • Colin Firth's slow-motion walk to the hockey field in wet white shirt with his jacket over his arm mimics a similar scene he did in the 1995 Pride and Prejudice.
      • The quizmaster's question "What book was originally titled First Impressions?" references the original title of Pride and Prejudice.
    • Similarly, there are a number of shoutouts surrounding "The Girl With A Pearl Earring", starting with Colin Firth's role in the 2003 film of the same name, the explicit reference to Colin Firth wanting to shag her, and Chelsea initially thinking that the idea is to "steal Scarlett Johansson.
    • To The Italian Job, when the twins use a little too much explosive during the heist rehearsal.

You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!

    • In her mannerisms and mode of dress, Camilla Fritton parodies Camilla, the (then-)Duchess of Cornwall.
    • When Thwaites and Camilla meet, she says "Another time!" and he answers "Another country!" His response is the title of a 1984 film in which Rupert Everett and Colin Firth first starred together.
    • When Annabelle is entering the school for the first time, she calls it "Hogwarts for Pikeys".
  • Shown Their Work: The discussion of explosives for cutting through an iron gate in the 2007 film is surprisingly accurate, right down to Miss Fritton's recommendation and the reason for it.
  • Writers Cannot Do Math: One scene in the 2007 film had Stephen Fry award points to a team for concluding that the volume of a sphere is πr^3. A fourteen-year-old could probably tell you that it's actually (4πr^3)/3.
    • Clearly the writer extrapolated from πr^2 giving the area of a circle. Stephen Fry is much better versed in humanities than science, otherwise he might have spotted this one.