It might have only dropped a few days ago, but it feels like everyone in the country has watched Adolescence by now and won’t stop banging on about it.
And it’s totally justified, the Netflix show is absolutely incredible.
With a powerful storyline and immense one-shot filming, the show stars, is co-written and created by Stephen Graham. Unsurprisingly, the four-part series has led to him being praised as one of the ‘greatest actors’ ever.
Inspired by real life, Adolescence follows a young lad named Jamie (Owen Cooper) who is accused of stabbing one of his female classmates to death.
Graham plays his dad, Eddie, with the likes of Christine Tremarco as mum, Manda, Ashley Walters as DI Luke Bascombe and Erin Doherty as child psychologist Briony Ariston.
The show begins with Jamie’s arrest and spans over the year and a bit following as more details and understanding to the horrific crime he is accused of comes to light.
And while it may leave plenty of parents horrified and shake viewers to their core, Graham has revealed the heartbreaking ‘true story’ behind Adolescence.
Jamie is accused of murdering a young girl (Netflix)
“There was an incident where a young boy [allegedly] stabbed a girl,” Graham told Netflix’s Tudum. “It shocked me. I was thinking, ‘What’s going on? What’s happening in society where a boy stabs a girl to death? What’s the inciting incident here?’ And then it happened again, and it happened again, and it happened again. I really just wanted to shine a light on it, and ask, ‘Why is this happening today? What’s going on? How have we come to this?’”
There’s been a rise in deathly knife crimes among teens in recent times and Graham described it as being an ‘epidemic amongst young lads up and down the country’.
Graham wanted to look into the blame on parents (Netflix)
Speaking at Next on Netflix back in January, he said it ‘really hit me hard’ as he continued: “Without being disrespectful, when these things are on the news – and we’re a couple of kids from council estates – but when these things are on the news, your judgement instantly goes to blaming the family, you blame the mum and dad.
“We’re all guilty of it, because that’s the easy common denominator. I just thought, ‘What if that’s not the case at all?’”
And that idea is reflected in the shattering final moments of the series as Eddie and Manda dissect their parenting and question how responsible they are for Jamie’s actions.
Co-creator Jack Thorne added that Adolescence was also driven by an exploration of male rage, opening up the concept of the ‘manosphere’.
“That is a journey I’ve never gone on as a writer before, and it scared me and excited me because it felt like we had something to say,” he said.
