Dialogue and teenage scrapes key to success of the Inbetweeners

By Tom Peterkin
Published on 07/07/2012 00:27

Written by Damon Beesley and Iain Morris, the Inbetweeners is a hit comedy series that charted the lives of four teenage boys at Rudge Park Comprehensive making the difficult transition to adulthood.

The Channel 4 programme, produced by Christopher Young, ran for three series before hitting the silver screen in 2010 as the Inbetweeners Movie, a huge success at the box office that told the story of a lads trip to Malia, in Crete, after their final term at school.

The writers’ brilliant ability to reproduce the dialogue of teenage boys and their pre-occupation with the opposite sex contributed hugely to the series’ success.

Many of the jokes derive from the characters’ difficult relationships with their parents and their teacher, Mr Gilbert, as well as the endless scrapes they find themselves in while pursuing girls and experimenting with drink and drugs.

Vulgarity, vomiting and lustful thoughts are never far from the surface in the series, which has spawned some memorable one-liners, most of which cannot be repeated in a family newspaper.

The show has been nominated for Best Situation Comedy at Bafta twice, in 2009 and 2010. At the British Academy Television Awards 2010, it won the Audience Award, and in 2010, the show won the Best Sitcom award at the British Comedy Awards.

In the 2011 British Comedy Awards, the show also won the award for Outstanding Contribution to British Comedy.