The Inbetweeners


The Inbetweeners is a British coming-of-age television sitcom, which originally aired on E4 from 2008–2010, that was created and written by Damon Beesley and Iain Morris. The series follows the misadventures of suburban teenager Will McKenzie and his friends Simon Cooper, Neil Sutherland and Jay Cartwright at the fictional Rudge Park Comprehensive. The programme involves situations of school life, uncaring school staff, friendship, male bonding, lad culture and largely failed sexual encounters.
The programme was nominated for Best Situation Comedy at BAFTA twice, in 2009 and 2010. At the British Academy Television Awards 2010, it won the Audience Award, the only category voted for by the public. In the 2011 British Comedy Awards, the programme also won the award for Outstanding Contribution to British Comedy.
The Inbetweeners Movie was released on 17 August 2011 to box office success, and a sequel followed on 6 August 2014.
An American version was broadcast on MTV, but quickly axed after low ratings and poor critical reception.

History

and Iain Morris met as producers on Channel 4's The 11 O'Clock Show. Following posts as commissioners at Channel 4, where Morris shepherded Peep Show, the two launched their own company, Bwark Productions, in 2004 and landed their first series with The Inbetweeners. A pilot for the programme was produced in 2006 under the direction of James Bobin titled "Baggy Trousers".
E4 originally aired the first series in May 2008, and Channel 4 also broadcast it in November that year. The second series began screening in the UK on 2 April 2009 and finished on 7 May 2009. A third series was commissioned by E4, commencing on 13 September 2010 and ending on 18 October 2010. The first episode of the third series had the highest-ever audience for an E4 original commission. Following the conclusion of the third series, the cast and crew of the programme indicated that there would be no fourth series as the programme had run its course, but that an Inbetweeners movie would be produced, set some time after the third series and following the cast on a holiday in Malia, Crete, Greece.
For Red Nose Day 2011, the stars of the programme travelled around the UK in the yellow Fiat Cinquecento Hawaii featured in the programme in a special named The Inbetweeners: Rude Road Trip. The aim was to try to find the 50 rudest place names in the country.
In November 2018, it was announced that a special retrospective programme featuring the cast would be aired to mark the 10 year anniversary of the programme's first airing in 2008. It was called Fwends Reunited and was broadcast on 1 January 2019; it was poorly received by critics and fans of the series, leading to James Buckley making a public apology.
In June 2020, the content on its YouTube channel was removed, due to the licensing rights changing owners.

Cast

Main cast

The four main characters are seen in every episode as well as the 2011 and 2014 films. They consist of:
Episodes of the first, second and third series can be viewed in Japan, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Australia, New Zealand, and the USA through Netflix. Channel 4's catch-up service All 4 also carries it in the UK and Ireland where you can also view 'Top Ten Inbetweeners Moments' and 'Fwends Reunited' All three series are also available on YouTube, along with The Inbetweeners: Rude Road Trip and Top Ten Inbetweeners Moments.

Music

The opening theme tune to The Inbetweeners is an instrumental version of "Gone Up In Flames" by English rock band Morning Runner. The first series also features music by Rachel Stevens, Tellison, Paolo Nutini, The Maccabees, Air Traffic, Calvin Harris, The Ting Tings, Arctic Monkeys, Theaudience, The Fratellis, Vampire Weekend, Two Door Cinema Club, Mystery Jets, Kid British, Phoenix, General Fiasco, Gorillaz, Hot Chip, Belle & Sebastian, Field Music, Jamie T, The Libertines, Rihanna, Oasis, Jack Peñate, Guillemots, The Feeling, Kate Nash, The Wombats, The Jam, The Cure, Lily Allen, Mumm-Ra, Kylie Minogue and Feist. The second series also featured instrumentals of Adele, Supergrass, Biffy Clyro, Passion Pit, Royworld, MGMT, Maxïmo Park, and The Cribs and the third series also featured instrumentals of Ludacris and Mr Understanding by Pete and the Pirates. A full list can be found on the .
A soundtrack album, The Inbetweeners Soundtrack, was released in 2009.
The music was chosen by the music supervisor and then Xfm DJ, Marsha Shandur.

Reception

Critical reception

The Inbetweeners has received generally positive reviews from television critics. At Metacritic, the first season earned a score of 73 out of 100, based on 7 reviews, indicating "Generally favorable reviews".
Joe McNally, writing for The Independent, commends an "exquisitely accurate dialogue, capturing the feel of adolescence perfectly" and Will Dean of The Guardian comments that the programme "captures the pathetic sixth-form male experience quite splendidly". The series is often contrasted with E4's successful teen drama, Skins; commentators have offered that "The Inbetweeners portrayal of dull suburbia is closer to the drab teen years most of us spent, rather than the decadent time we wished we spent."

Ratings

The first series began on 1 May 2008, with the pilot episode garnering 238,000 viewers. The series averaged 459,000 viewers, with 474,000 viewers watching the series finale. The Inbetweeners received two nominations at the British Comedy Awards; the programme was nominated for "Best New British Television Comedy " and Simon Bird was nominated for "Best Male Comedy Newcomer". Both won their respective categories. The programme was also voted by the British Comedy Guide website as the "Best New British TV Sitcom 2008". It was nominated for "Best Situation Comedy" at the British Academy Television Awards 2009, ultimately losing out to The IT Crowd. It then won the Audience Award at the British Academy Television Awards 2010.
The first episode of series two, which aired on E4 at 10 pm 2 April 2009, averaged 958,000 viewers, with another 234,000 viewers watching at 11 pm on the time-shift channel E4 +1 meaning it was watched by 1.2 million, the highest audience of 2009 for E4.
Episode one of series three aired on 13 September 2010 on UK digital terrestrial network E4, attracting a record breaking overnight average audience of 2.6m viewers in its 10 pm slot, the highest ever viewing figure for a programme screened on the channel until 2011 when Glee beat the record. For this series, it was moved to Monday instead of Thursday but kept its 10pm slot.

Awards

began airing The Inbetweeners from 25 January 2010. The network aired both of the first two series as a single 12-episode series. The same was done by MTV Latin America.
In 2010, The Inbetweeners started airing in Australia on the Nine Network's digital channel GO!, on Super Channel in Canada, on the comedy channel TV4 Komedi in Sweden, on TV2 in New Zealand, on MTV Latin America. In Israel, yes Next aired the first two series, while the third series airdate is unknown. The three seasons came in 2012 to HOT VOD. In 2011, the series was premiered in Brazil on I.Sat and on 13 August 2013 the Brazilian streaming site "Muu" premiered the British production.
On 28 February 2011, The Inbetweeners started airing in France on MCM.
The Australian channel ABC2 aired the programme from 8 January 2015.
CountryNetworkPremiere
E4/Channel 41 May 2008
MTV Latin America23 July 2010
GO!
UKTV
ABC2		2010
2011
2015
JIM2010
MTV Brasil
I.Sat		2010
2011
Super Channel2010
MTV Latin America2010
Yle TV22012
MCM; NRJ1228 February 2011
RÚV2012
Comedy Central 2012
E4/Channel 4
RTÉ Two		1 May 2008
9 January 2012
yes Next2010
MTV Italy2010
TV4 Komedi2010
Veronica
MTV Netherlands		6 December 2011
2012
TV2
UKTV		2010
NRK 3Summer 2011
MTV Portugal2010
2x231 November 2011
3XL2010
BBC America25 January 2010

Home media

All of the DVDs received an 18 certificate in the United Kingdom and MA15+ in Australia due to their high number of strong language, crude humour and strong, frequent, sex references. The theatrical version of The Inbetweeners Movie received a 15 certificate in the United Kingdom, with the extended cut release receiving an 18 certificate.

Spin-offs

Films

In September 2009, Beesley and Morris confirmed that a film had been commissioned by Film4. The plot revolves around the four boys, now eighteen years old, going on holiday to Malia, Greece. It was released in cinemas on 17 August 2011 with a 15 certificate in the UK. The original film was also released in the United States on 7 September 2012, it was very successful. From a budget of £3.5 million, the film made a global box office of over £57 million.
At the beginning of August 2013, creators Iain Morris and Damon Beesley confirmed that a second Inbetweeners film would be made with a planned release date of 6 August 2014 in the UK and Ireland; they released a statement saying "We couldn't be more excited to be making another Inbetweeners movie. A new chapter in the lives of the Inbetweeners feels like the very least we can do to thank the fans for their phenomenal response to the first movie." This sequel is set in Australia.

Books

There have been two books released:
In 2008, Iain Morris and Damon Beesley were asked by ABC to produce a pilot for a US version of The Inbetweeners. The pilot was not picked up by the network, but they have given Morris and Beesley a second blind script commitment for a future project which the two will create.
On 31 March 2011, it was announced that MTV had ordered a 12-episode first season for a U.S. version of The Inbetweeners. A pilot episode, written by Brad Copeland, was given the green light in September 2010. Copeland also serves as executive producer on the series along with Beesley and Morris. The series ran for one season from 20 August to 5 November 2012, before being cancelled by MTV due to low ratings.
The US version began airing in the UK on 5 December 2012 on E4. A UK DVD release of the US version was released on 8 January 2013. The US version was broadcast on Viacom-owned Freeview channel Viva from 4 August 2014.

Fwends Reunited

On 1 January 2019, Channel 4 broadcast a 10-year anniversary special entitled 'Fwends Reunited', hosted by Jimmy Carr. The four lead actors were present alongside supporting cast members; the title is a reference to a joke within the episode Will Gets a Girlfriend. The special itself was a chat show with multiple segments including a quiz with four fans of the show, a history of the programme's production hosted by Neil Oliver, and awards based on the programme's best characters and moments. The special was met with a mostly negative reception from critics and fans alike; criticism from general viewers was primarily aimed at it being a simple chat show when a number of fans had mistakenly anticipated it as being a one-off special episode. The Independent noted the "overwhelmingly negative responses" the special received, which included criticism from viewers towards the host Jimmy Carr, viewers claiming the four actors appeared uninterested in the special, while there was also disappointment that they were not given a chance to speak more. Michael Hogan of The Daily Telegraph dubbed it a "shambolic mess that failed to do the show justice", although a more positive review came from Sean O'Grady of The Independent, who considered it "full of nostalgia". The extensive criticism led to James Buckley issuing an apology through Twitter.