I’m the only one in my family that’s got A-Levels. I’ve never dropped anybody off at uni before. What often happens is that the first people in their family to go to uni, they get there and they’re like: ‘What the f**k is this?’ I’d never had any frame of reference. That’s like, if we want to go heavy chat type thing, a real New Labour education policy – let’s get more kids going to uni, let’s get more people accessing those routes to higher education. A lot of people my age – well, our age – are the first people in their families to have gone to uni. I felt like I wanted people to celebrate the nastiness of what it is to go to uni. It almost made me reminiscent of my uni days even though I know they were kind of terrible.
But what I really wanted with Big Boys is for it to feel like a very small, sweet world where those characters are still funny, but we know them.Īnd I do think that’s also reflective of being a fresher and going to uni, being 18 and being like, ‘F**k, I’ve got to look after myself, got to figure myself out, I’ve got to learn who I am all of a sudden.’ Big Boys creator Jack Rooke with stars Dylan Llewellyn and Camille Coduri (Channel 4) I love those shows and I love the scale of ambition. It stars Derry Girls‘ Dylan Llewellyn as Jack following the death of his dad Laurie, when he was 15-years-old, through to his time at university, where he strikes up a friendship with mature student and atypical straight lad Danny, played by Jon Pointing.
Written and produced by comedian and mental health advocate Rooke, Big Boys is a semi-autobiographical journey through his coming-of-age years exploring grief, sexuality, mental health and friendship. But while Channel 4’s funny, moving and quite frankly beautiful new comedy-drama Big Boys may be a show about coming out, losing your virginity, poppers and lube, it’s equally a love letter to working-class culture and, in creator Jack Rooke’s own words, “celebrating naffness”.
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The runaway success of It’s a Sin and Heartstopper makes it difficult not to use them as points of comparison when a new episodic TV show with queerness as its heart comes along. For some of us, the best we had for representation while clumsily navigating our first blowjob was John Paul and Craig in Hollyoaks. EastEnders even has its own gay bar, for f**k’s sake.