is late for a mathematics exam and speeds past a blue Reliant Regal in his Mini, running it off the road and nearly overturning it in the process. Arriving at the college he has been attending, Bean finds himself sitting next to a fellow student who asks him if he did his revision. Bean replies that he has been concentrating on trigonometry, to which the student says that he has studied calculus. Bean then says he believes calculus was the focus of the test last year, rendering the other student worried while Bean snickers to himself for deceiving him. The invigilator announces that the exam will start in two minutes. During those two minutes, Bean prepares himself by getting out many pens, as well as a policeman doll, a Pink Panther doll and a Mickey Mousealarm clock which he sets for when the exam finishes to show he revised, he can give exam and his preparation was well. The exam starts and Bean panics when he takes a calculus paper out of the envelope. He gradually becomes frustrated and has no idea how to complete it, so he resorts to spending most of the exam time trying to cheat and copy the other student's work, but each attempt ends in failure. Eventually, Bean gives up and cries out "Oh, Mummy!" before placing his head on the desk and sleeping for the remainder of the exam. Two minutes before the end, the invigilator gives instructions on what to do with the papers once the exam is over. From this, Bean realises that there were two papers in the envelope – a green calculus paper and a white trigonometry paper, with each student given a choice as to which to do. Bean takes out the trigonometry paper and frantically tries to complete it in a hurried fashion, but his pen has run out of ink and won't write anything, so he steals the other student's pen. Unfortunately, the exam is already over and the invigilator tells the students to stop writing. But Bean is determined to finish the exam and continues, and he finally stops when the invigilator furiously yells "WILL YOU STOP WRITING?!" at the third time. At this point, his alarm clock rings off and Bean frantically attempts to turn it off.
Act 2: The Beach
After his exam, Bean heads to the Peacehavenbeach, running the Reliant Regal off the road once again in the process. Reaching the beachfront, he looks forward to his swim in the sea but finds himself unable to change into his swimming trunks without exposing himself to a man wearing sunglasses sitting in a nearby deckchair. Not wishing to travel back up the steps he climbed down in order to change, he puts his trunks on over his trousers and eventually manages to remove his trousers by pulling one leg out, passing the trouser leg through his trunks and then pulling the trousers off the other leg. Although this plan works, Bean then sees the man grabbing his white cane and leaving, revealing that he was blind all along.
After his beach outing, Bean attends a church service, pushing out the Reliant from its parking space near to the Stanmer Church. Heading inside, he arrives as the opening hymn, Eternal Father, Strong to Save, has finished and takes a seat next to Mr. Sprout. As the vicar gives his apparently gibberish sermon, Bean sneezes loudly and finds himself needing to wipe his nose, effectively using the lining of one of his coat pockets to do so as he doesn't have a tissue or handkerchief. Finding the sermon to be very dull, he does everything to keep himself awake, eventually trying to put a sweet into his mouth. However, the watchful eye of Mr. Sprout causes Bean to conceal this a few times, accidentally making him drop it inside his shirt just as the second hymn, All Creatures of Our God and King, is about to be sung. When Mr. Sprout refuses to share his hymnal, Bean does not know the words to the hymn and sings mostly gibberish except during the chorus, where he obnoxiously sings an extremely loud and inappropriately emphasized "Hallelujah". While the hymn is going on, he manages to move the sweet through his shirt and his trousers, picking it up off the ground. As the hymn comes to an end, Bean attempts to eat it only for Mr. Sprout to abruptly look his way at the last second and make him accidentally put it into the pocket he used to wipe his nose and he grimaces. As the end credits roll, Mr. Bean is seen again driving in his Mini and once again encounters the Reliant, whereupon he turns the wrong way down a one-way street and crashes his car while the Reliant drives off. Coming out unscathed, Bean promptly runs off down the other road, shortly after a wheel from his Mini bounces from the accident and rolls against the pavement.
Following success with his character during his introduction at the Montreal comedy festivalJust for Laughs in 1987, a script was written by Ben Elton, making this the only script he wrote for the series. Thames Television commissioned the pilot in 1989. The company's head of light entertainment, John Howard Davies, personally oversaw the first three episodes of the series as its producer and director. The pilot itself was produced during the latter part of 1989, with location scenes filmed on OB videotape around the Peacehaven and Stanmer areas of East Sussex and interior scenes recorded before a live audience at Thames' Teddington Studios complex. As the episode was merely a pilot, it was simply called "Mr. Bean" and did not feature opening titles, nor the choral theme tune. Instead the episode's title was superimposed along with initial credits during the scene of Bean's journey to the exam hall, with the closing credits during the final scene.
Awards and legacy
The pilot won the 1990 Golden Rose award, with the church sketch later performed live by both Rowan Atkinson and Angus Deayton as part of a comedy tour in 1991. This same sketch inspired the storyline for "Ray of Sunshine" from Mr. Bean: The Animated Series.
Censorship
The scene in act two where Mr. Bean removes his trousers after putting on his swimming trunks was removed from broadcasts for this episode on Disney Channel Asia.
