Alert – Can you match the celebrity to their withering school report? Answer which star was called ‘imbecilic, lunatic, impertinent & smug’, who was accused of ‘spending too much time giggling over silly love letters’, and who was labelled ‘on the road to failure’

1. Roald Dahl: The view of one of the author’s English teachers at Repton School in Derbyshire was perhaps prophetic. For his book The BFG, Dahl went on to create 238 new nonsensical words (including crumpscoddle, swallomp and snozzcumber), forming his own language, which he called Gobblefunk.

2. Gary Lineker: An earlier review had noted that his academic work was ‘handicapped by excessive juvenility’. He is now the BBC’s highest paid star (on up to £1,354,999), having retired as England’s second-highest goalscorer.

3. Charlotte Bronte: This tepid assessment of the Jane Eyre author was recorded in the Register at the Clergy Daughters’ School in Cowan Bridge, Lancs, in 1824, and concluded: ‘Altogether clever for her age but knows nothing systematically.’

4. John Lennon: The Beatle was 15 and a pupil at Quarry Bank High in Liverpool when he received this criticism from his maths teacher, who added: ‘His term marks amounted to 17 per cent of the maximum and he missed the final exams.’ On religious instruction: ‘Work fair — and his attitude in class most unsatisfactory.’

5. Lord (David) Puttnam: The producer behind Oscar-winning Chariots Of Fire said: ‘At age 11, I was awarded a scholarship to my local grammar school. I turned up on my first day eager to impress. However, my teachers failed to respond to this enthusiasm and quickly dismissed my capabilities.’ He would become Chancellor of the Open University and receive more than 50 honorary degrees.

6. Alan Turing: The World War II hero who helped crack the Nazis’ Enigma Code failed to wow his physics teacher at Sherborne School in Dorset. However, aged nine he had impressed his headmistress at St Michael’s Primary School in Hastings who wrote to his parents: ‘I have had clever boys and hard-working boys. But Alan is a genius.’

7. LORD (Michael) Heseltine: He would go on to be Margaret Thatcher’s deputy, but BLH Wilson at Shrewsbury School did not pull his punches (although he sugared the pill by adding: ‘But cheerful and probably rudimentarily good-natured’).

8. Jilly Cooper: In a report on the future ‘queen of the bonkbuster’ from Moorfields Primary School in Ilkley, Yorks, her teacher also wrote: ‘Jilly has set herself extremely low standards, which she has failed to maintain.’ And: ‘Please remind your daughter that boys can be very distracting for young ladies and romance is most certainly not a suitable subject for polite conversation in this school.’ Her interest in sex would help her sell 11 million books in the UK.

9. Dame Joan Collins: ‘What irony!’ the actress wrote in her autobiography, of her report from Rada. She would go on to find fame and fortune in ‘the films’ and on TV’s Dynasty. Of her alma mater’s attitude towards movies, she said: ‘Frankly they disapproved. Art was only possible in the theatre.’

10. Winston Churchill: That was the report from his headmaster in 1884, when he was nine and, according to the International Churchill Society, ‘was showing improvement in his academic subjects but his conduct was deteriorating’. Another report on the man who galvanised the nation against the Nazis bemoaned: ‘He has no ambition.’

11. Princess Diana: Her report came from West Heath Girls’ School in Kent. Another read: ‘Unfortunately, Diana has a defeatist attitude where her weaknesses are concerned, which must change if she is to achieve an overall improvement.’ She would later be immortalised as the ‘People’s Princess’ by PM Tony Blair.

12. The King: This early report was from Hill House prep in London. The headmaster also said Charles was ‘full of go, full of physical courage — a damned good lad’. He was the first British monarch to receive a university degree.

13. Cilla Black: The singer and TV star left school with this report in 1958, when she was still Priscilla White. She took her teacher’s advice, doing a secretarial and shorthand course at Anfield Commercial College. After being signed by Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein, she would become the top-selling British female singer of the 1960s.

14. Joanna Lumley: Her teachers at St Mary’s Convent School near Hastings were not convinced Lumley was Absolutely Fabulous. They also wrote ‘her manner of speech needs care’, she was ‘still rather aggressive’, ‘still rather noisy’ and ‘she should try to be more unobtrusive’. What the nuns would have made of her chain-smoking, alcoholic character Patsy Stone in sitcom AbFab is anyone’s guess.

15. Richard Rogers: His 1958 report from the Architectural Association School of Architecture said he would never amount to much ‘while his drawing is so bad, his method of works so chaotic and his critical judgment so inarticulate’. Lord Rogers answered his teachers with the Millennium Dome, the Pompidou Centre and the Lloyd’s of London building.

16. Sir PG Wodehouse: In 1899, AH Gilkes, head at Dulwich College, wrote that Pelham Grenville Wodehouse — who found fame with his Jeeves stories — ‘draws over his books in a most distressing way and writes foolish rhymes in other people’s books. One is obliged to like him in spite of his vagaries’.

17. Lord (david) Cameron: His grades at Heatherdown School in Berkshire in 1978, published in 2010, revealed Cameron to be bottom of the class. None of this would stop the current Foreign Secretary going on to gain a first class degree… and become PM.

18. Peter Mandelson: This was from the Labour spin doctor’s fourth-form report at Hendon County grammar school, North London. Headmaster Maynard Potts later said: ‘Eventually he will wish to undertake some great task on behalf of humanity.’ Weeks later, Mandelson joined the Young Communist League.