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It’s the start of the Michaelmas term at Oxford University and eighteen year old John Kemp arrives by train from his northern town. Naive and studious; shy and awkward, he’s the first in his family to go to university; the result of an ambitious English master, supportive parents, and a full scholarship.
After suffering the dilemmas of the train he arrives at his college to find that he’s sharing rooms with a boy called Christopher Warner; a vaguely charming, bullyish rogue, who’s already arrived and filled their rooms with friends who are having tea. The noise, the laughter, the smoking, the girls, everything about his situation is excruciating and I thought I might be in for a raucous comedy of class difference and ribaldry . . .
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