Sober the next day, he realises that he has violated the terms of his grant; the two offer to sell it back to him for five hundred pounds, money he can't possibly raise.

Mervyn makes a reasonable effort with music by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, but the supercilious know-it-all Harold annoys the musicians with constant criticism and they have their own back on him, with an over-fast rendition of Rossini's William Tell Overture.

[citation needed] The recital section of the film was based on anecdotes told to Bruce Montgomery by Eric Coates about the formation of the Celtic String Quartet, who performed only one concert, beset by disasters.

[5] The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "The aging students are cut to the conventional pattern: including the leery scholar (Leslie Phillips), the apparently dumb blonde (Liz Fraser), the hard-working one (Paul Massie), the flip wise-cracker (Jimmy Thompson) and the nice girl (Jennifer Jayne).

These accomplished funnymen go through their usual paces with aplomb, but the film belongs to the delightful Esma Cannon as a deaf landlady, Kenneth Williams as a toffee-nosed swot and Sidney James as the publisher behind Phillips's predicament.