Jeremy Brown (often called “Mr. Brown“) is the protagonist of Mind Your Language. He is played by Barry Evans.
Profile
In “The First Lesson”, Mr. Brown is hired as an EFL (English as a foreign language) teacher at a school run by Miss Courtney. Although he dislikes her and clashes with her many times throughout the series, he sometimes shows that he cares for her, such as when he stops Albert Collins from bilking her out of her life savings.[1] Despite sometimes becoming exasperated with his students’ creative uses of English and misconceptions about British culture, he earns their respect and admiration as the series progresses, and Roger Kenyon, an inspector for the local education authority, says his teaching methods are “revolutionary”.[2]
Some of Mr. Brown’s female students find his demeanour and youthful appearance charming, and Danielle and later Ingrid have a crush on him. His own feelings toward love and relationships are complicated: he states in “A Fate Worse Than Death” that he has no intention of marrying anyone, though he also says “occasionally” when Miss Courtney reads the word “sex” off a form she’s filling out. (This may mean that he’s a womaniser, or else that he’s trying to save face or just being facetious.) He has a Siamese cat named Josephine, but other than her lives alone in a flat.
Mr. Brown is known for quickly picking up the idiosyncrasies of his students’ speech, especially when talking to Su-Lee, Taro and Anna. It can be inferred that he understands some languages other than English, since he occasionally uses French and German words when speaking to Danielle and Anna and asks Boris if he can speak any European languages.[3] As some versions of the show’s description say, he helps his students outside the classroom and they help him.
Jeremy Brown was born in England and was left at an orphanage on Jeremy Street on an Easter Monday, when he was about 2 weeks old. He never knew his parents, and for the first 2 years of his life he was convinced that his mother was a big woolly teddy bear. Likewise, he is unsure if he ever had any siblings.[4]
Mr. Brown was a Boy Scout in his youth and earned a Pathfinder badge.[5] After graduating from Oxford University with a Bachelor of Arts, he taught at a secondary modern school until he grew tired of his students beating him. He then applied for a job at Miss Courtney’s school and was hired to replace Mr. Warburton.[6] He says that he once proposed marriage, but it didn’t happen because his girlfriend was already married.
Mr. Brown is implied to be a smoker when he offers a cigarette to Sid (who takes the whole pack).[4] He is either 29 or 30 years old at the beginning of the series, depending on which birthday he celebrates in “Come Back All Is Forgiven”.
