“There’s an epidemic of knife crime amongst young, young lads … up and down the country.” That’s how British star Stephen Graham (Bodies, Boiling Point) describes the origins of the idea for his Netflix crime drama Adolescence, which premieres on Thursday, during a recent Next on Netflix event in London. The show, unfolding in real-time, consists of four episodes that are each filmed in one continuous shot.
The story starts with 13-year-old Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper) being arrested for the murder of a teenage girl who goes to his school. Co-creator and co-writer Graham stars as his father Eddie. Rounding out the cast are Ashley Walters (Top Boy) as Detective Inspector Luke Bascombe, Erin Doherty (The Crown) as Briony Ariston, the clinical psychologist assigned to Jamie’s case, Christine Tremarco (The Responder) as Jamie’s mother Manda, Faye Marsay (Game of Thrones), Mark Stanley (Happy Valley), Jo Hartley (After Life) and Amélie Pease. The show asks such difficult questions as what would you do if your teenage son was accused of a horrible crime, while exploring the corrosive effects of toxic masculinity and bullying.
The co-creator and writer is Jack Thorne (Enola Holmes, The Swimmers, Joy, His Dark Materials), with director Philip Barantini bringing his one-shot experience from Boiling Point, also starring Graham, to the project.
“I play a man called Eddie, who’s just a normal father,” Graham says. “He’s a hard-working man. He’s got his own business. He’s a grafter, and he’s raising his family doing the best that he can. And then suddenly his whole world is rocked by something that his son is accused of.”
He also shares how the title for the series came about. “There were certain incidents that really stuck out where young boys — and they are young boys, they’re not men, their brains aren’t fully formed yet, hence the title — were killing young girls,” the star explains.
Graham wanted to explore the range of horrible questions this caused him to ask. “One day, it just really hit my heart. I just thought: What’s happening? Why is this the case? What’s going on with our society as a whole, as a collective,” he says. “Without being disrespectful, when these things are on the news [and you have] a couple of kids from council estates [which is the British equivalent to housing projects], you blame the family, we blame the mom and dad. We’re all guilty of it.”
Asked about the one-shot approach, Graham says it brings together elements of theater and TV. “Without sounding pretentious, it’s the marriage of both mediums,” he explains. “Technically, it’s a play, and we’re playing to the camera. We spent a whole week [for each episode] rehearsing as actors with Phil, and we went through every beat, through every moment, piece by piece by piece by piece. We dissected the script, which is beautifully written by Jack Thorne. And you just immerse yourself in that character.”
He adds that the process of working within the confines of a single take actually had a calming effect on him: “We also spent a whole week on the choreography of the camera work. But when we turn up as actors, we can also have our own input, our influence. We have to work out how to move around the table and where because it has to be seamless and continuous. It’s just such a wonderful process, but it is the most zen as an actor I’ve ever been. You are in that character from the moment we say ‘action’ and start until the moment we say ‘cut’ and finish.”
