Why The Inbetweeners comeback is perfectly timed for Millennials
Expect more dad dancing, car stomping and general cringe-inducing telly: The Inbetweeners comeback means the foursome is returning after more than ten years away. And yes, it looks like the original cast is returning too. This is great news, and I’d argue that there couldn’t be a better time to unite the four unlikely friends.
Sure, there’s an argument to say that this reunion definitely wouldn’t have happened had the four actors found bigger success outside of the series. Will actor Simon Bird went on to star in Friday Night Dinner and Blake Harrison who played Neil has had some decent London theatre roles, while James Buckley who played immature Jay had his gaming podcast.
But none have found the level of fame they enjoyed with the hit Channel 4 show about four teenagers from differing backgrounds, going about their young lives as they graduate from high school and experiment with alcohol, group holidays and girls.
The Inbetweeners comeback feels perfectly timed for Millennials who are still living at home, still binge drinking and guiltily smoking cigarettes
But there’s more to it than that: The Inbetweeners went on to epitomise the Millennial cliche: the backpack-wearing, binge-drinking nomad who didn’t quite fit in with the idea of growing up. They might be older now – the characters’ must be in their mid-thirties – but that’s exactly the point. So many stats and surveys tells us that more and more Millennials are also choosing not to settle down.
More thirty and forty-somethings are going on lads holidays, travelling the world, staying single, questioning whether they’ll have children, and living for experiences. So much so, The Wall Street Journal wrote an essay recently entitled ‘What Happens When A Whole Generation Never Grows Up?”
The Inbetweeners was also fairly unwoke, especially through the character of Jay, whose whole bit was that he was chasing “clunge”, which feels as if it would chime well with today’s rollback of PC culture in comedy.
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They’re also all competent actors – there’s a reason the show did so well in the first place – it wasn’t just the writing, but the actors who pulled off these four hilariously contrasting young men. I, like thousands of other kids who grew up at the time of the show, felt seen by the representation.
And like so many others, I’m still figuring out what I want to do with life. Whether I want to do more travelling, whether I want to get married, how to stop binge drinking every weekend and I really should cut out of those social cigarettes. It turns out that for me and plenty of other Millennials I know, not much has changed between our twenty-year-old selves and ourselves today. If there was ever more of a reason to bring The Inbetweeners back, I don’t know what that would be.
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Series creators Damon Beesley and Iain Morris’ production company Fudge Park has joined into a partnership with Banijay UK which “paves the way for the return of the hit comedy title.”
It isn’t yet clear whether The Inbetweeners will return as TV series, film or stage show, but Jonathan Blyth, managing director at Fudge Park, said: “We are thrilled to announce this exciting partnership with Banijay who share our vision and ambition for one of the most iconic comedies in British history.”
And the series creators added in a statement that it is “incredibly exciting to be plotting more adventures for our four favourite friends (ooh friends).”
Simon actor Joe Thomas hinted last year that a reunion could be in the works. He told the Always Be Comedy podcast: “All of us feel it would be nice to do. We’re all still around, we’re all still in each other’s lives. We all still like each other. And if it was something that came up, I think we would want to do it.”
There were two original Channel 4 series of The Inbetweeners between 2008 and 2010, and two films followed, one in 2011 and one in 2014.