Looking up cool British TV shows on the internet in your spare time? In that case, it’s more than likely that you are, or once were, an Inbetweener. Not a Big Bang Theory nerd, because you’d be out LARPing or posting on gaming forums. Certainly not a cool Skins kid, because you’d be writhing around with your fellow beautiful people at the hot club, probably doing some really fashionable drugs. Just somewhere in between.
That’s why the Inbetweeners are a breath of fresh air. Following the lives of a group of friends at an average suburban comprehensive school in London, this E4 comedy series strikes a perfect balance, evoking empathy and schadenfreude by equal turns as the group’s adventures unfold.
Meet Will (Simon Bird), who has been forced to leave his private school due to his mum’s financial problems. After enrolling at Rudge Park Comprehensive, he’s on a mission to make some friends and soon does, in the shape of Jay (James Buckley), Neil (Blake Harrison) and Simon (Joe Thomas). A serial exaggerator, an undercover disco king and a lovesick romantic, with Will playing the ‘straight man’, the four deliver some truly golden comedy moments (the Happy Foundation bus incident is a personal favourite). The actors in these main roles work incredibly well together, the dialogue is natural and believable, and none of them give off that incredibly-smug-teenage-actor vibe that all of the Skins cast do.
The writers have done a good job of keeping the main story elements realistic to the average 6th form student (taking a driving test, organising the school dance, going on a caravan holiday), so that the viewer is fully engaged with the story when it reaches its inevitably ridiculous (and always hilarious) conclusion. Parents and teenage girls may also benefit from understanding the dodgy rationalisation process 17-year old boys go through before doing the seemingly inexplicable things that they do! I like the fact that there’s no knife crime or ASBOs, but that stupid Dawson and his perfect Creek don’t get a look in either; this is a well-written comedy about normal, imperfect but generally quite nice teenagers.
My only issue with the show is Mr. Cooper (played by Martin Trenaman). Coming on like the Demon Headmaster, Mr. Cooper is just too one-dimensional up against the well-rounded main characters. He’s got one speed and it’s Evil, which wouldn’t matter quite so much if he was in another, less good, programme. It’s just plain unlikely that anyone teaching a modern sixth form would be this hacked off about it, and the writers here have fallen into the trap of believing that all teachers are bitter civil servants from the 1970s who hate their students and their lives.
That said, it’s really one of the only faults I can find with this series (although the swearing and imaginative sexual references and terms will probably put some people off). Series 2 is scheduled in for 2009, in the meantime, catch up by buying the Series 1 DVD.
Buy the series at Amazon.co.uk now! - The Inbetweeners [2008]
PLEASE NOTE: The above link goes directly to the correct DVD product on Amazon. To avoid confusion, this review refers to “The Inbetweeners” (2008), starring Simon Bird. There was also a British series in 2001 called “Inbetweeners”, which I haven’t seen so don’t know whether it’s any good or not.
