Do you know where we are right now with Pen15? We’re in that sweet spot, right before a TV show blows our socks off and everyone grows tired of hearing how brilliant it is. Steadily, word is spreading about how touching, achingly cringe-worthy, horrific and hilarious Pen15 is, the series about two 13-year-old best friends, Maya and Anna, which follows them as they navigate the torturous world of adolescence, set in the year 2000.
America is, of course, way ahead of us with this one: the New York Times recently published an article titled: ‘PEN15 Is No Longer an Underdog, and That Feels Weird’. It’s won an Emmy and a third season is being touted. (I know, where have we been?)
It’s not just the fact the show’s 33-year-old creators, Anna Konkle and Maya Erskine, don braces and play their teenage selves (which feels ludicrous and mindbogglingly convincing at the same time) among a cast of actual 13-year-olds actors playing their classmates. The thing that makes this show so simultaneously gorgeous and painful to watch is the way every detail, worry, heartache and longing is so accurate. It will transport every thirty-something woman back to those 00s days, when we came of age.
What could be more comforting comfort TV right now than watching an almost re-enactment of your childhood, set in what looks like your teenage bedroom? This show jogs your memory in a way you didn’t know it needed, forcing you to recall teenage milestones you didn’t even know were buried in there. It lurches you back to a time you didn’t know you could still feel affected by.
What could be more comforting comfort TV right now than watching an almost re-enactment of your childhood, set partly in what looks uncannily like your teenage bedroom?
A girl getting her first period has been done to death in coming-of-age telly, but your first leg shave? First cigarette? First thong? In one episode, Maya and Anna steal a thong from the home of one of the popular girls. I suddenly remembered buying my first thong from Tammy Girl at the age of 12 or 13 and washing it in secret in the bathroom sink because I was too embarrassed to put it through the wash. Both the girls feel invincible as they walk through the school wearing the thong (they take it in turns) with the swagger of a catwalk model; it captures that longing we all felt at that age, for puberty to hurry up and work its magic and turn us into adults.
Maya and Anna are at the age where they float half way between playing imaginative games with Slyvanian Families and practising kissing on their bedroom mirrors. It took me back to when my childhood best friend and I used to ‘call’ our fake boyfriends before bed whenever we had sleepovers. They were called Eric and Ryan, because we’d heard Eric Cantona and Ryan Giggs were cool – duh.
The show also captures the intimate and possessively-close friendships you have at that age, taking you back to the bed-sharing, the arm-linking and the constant phone calls on the landline. In another episode, we're reminded of the sound of the AOL dial-up tone as Maya tries to talk to her 'boyfriend' in a chat room. I recalled the impatience and fury I'd feel when my parents shouted that I'd been on long enough and should stop hogging the phone line.
Then there’s The First Kiss… You’ve probably hidden your own experience away in a dark corner of your subconscious, but this scene will bring every spit bubble and saliva string screamingly back to you. At a movie night with friends at Anna’s boyfriend’s house, he leads her out of the front room (after informing his friend that he plans to kiss her and waiting for Chinese whispers to work its magic around the room). It brought back the dread, clammy palms and pounding heart I felt at the time, remembering the exact same situation happening with my first kiss – my then boyfriend leading me away from our friends watching a film to awkwardly stand in the next door room while he mechanically rotated his tongue around the lower half of my face.
Pen15 forces you to remember things you haven’t thought about in decades, but once you do, you feel a sense of comfort in the familiarity and nostalgia of it all – however gross the experience was – because it was a necessary and tender part of growing up, and the thoughts distract from the anxious mindset of clusterfuck many of us are stuck in right now.
The fact Pen15 it is set to a backdrop of The Spice Girls, S Club 7 and B*Witched helps thenostalgia, but it’s the smaller details that are poignantly accurate and make you feel seen: from the straggly bits of hair (kept in place with spit) hanging out of the front of the scraped back ponytail, the lankiness, the glittery gel pens, the notes passed around class and thebutterfly hair clips.
It also forces you to confront who you were back then and question how aware of wider issues you were. In the episode ‘Posh’ it brings home the microaggressions and casual racism many people of colour are forced to put up with in school. In one scene, Maya and Anna are performing and filming a Spice Girls routine with some popular girls in their class. Maya (who is half Japanese) is told by the popular girls she has to be Mel B because ‘You look the most like Scary.’ (She doesn’t). What’s more, the popular girls make Maya be their servant in the video. ‘Because you’re, like, different than us … because you’re, like, tan,’ they say. Maya senses something isn’t right, but doesn’t have the words to express how she’s feeling. After it is pointed out to Maya and Anna later on by Maya’s big brother and his friend how wrong this is, Anna admits she will never know what it’s like to be Maya, but vows never to stand by and let that happen again.
As a white person, it encouraged me to think back to the Spice Girls routines and playground games which felt innocuous at the time, to reassess whether I was ever complicit in the way Anna was, by not realising she needed to stand up for her friend.
In its own way, each episode makes you think about who you were as a teenager, all while being brilliantly entertaining. So thank you Anna and Maya, for taking us away from 2020 and bringing this to us in our time of need. I can’t imagine anyone not enjoying this, but if you were a teenage girl in the year 2000, go bury yourself under a duvet because this is comfort TV that will speak to you.
Watch on Sky Comedy and Hulu.
Books To Read Before You Watch The TV Show
Books To Read Before They Come To Screen - Grazia
1 of 11Bernardine Evaristo - Girl, Woman, Other
Depicting modern British life from the perspective of 12 different individuals - most of whom are black women - this Booker Prize winner was one of the highest-selling releases of 2019. Gail Egan and Andrea Calderwood's UK production company Potboiler Television won the rights the this best-seller and are said to be 'delighted to be working with Bernardine on bringing this vibrant and joyous novel to the screen.'It is a vivid and authentic as well as important story of our times,' they said. Details about when the adaption will air are yet to be known, but you'll definitely want to read the critically-acclaimed novel for yourself first.
2 of 11Sally Rooney - Normal People and Conversations With Friends
Rooneyhas had huge success with her novel Normal People. The TV adaption of this book is set to have 12 episodes and air on BBC Three and Hulu at some point in 2020. Set in Ireland during the economic downturn on the noughties, the story follows the complicated relationship of Connell and Marianne throughout their schooling and university education.
3 of 11Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy
The man who adapted Les Miserables for the small screen - Andrew Davies - is now bringing us the epic A Suitable Boy, condensed into six episodes for a new BBC1 period drama. This classic novel is set in India in the 1950s and follows the lives of four families as the country prepares for a political election during its new found independence. Expect it in June 2020.
4 of 11Thomas Perry - The Old Man
The book is being adapted by Hulu for a TV series starring Jeff Bridges later this year. The premise of this thriller novel is that a former CIA officer (Bridges), who now lives off the grid, is forced to confront his past when an assassin tries to murder him.
5 of 11Ian McGuire - The North Water
Don't miss Colin Farrell playing Henry Drax in BBC Two's four-part mini-series adaptation of McGuire's novel this year. Drax, an amoral, murderous whale harpooner, sets sail with Patrick Summer (Jack O'Connell) on an ill-fated journey to the Arctic. Read the book before the series comes out to find out what happens on the water!
6 of 11Malorie Blackman - Noughts and Crosses
The adaption of Malorie Blackman's Noughts and Crosses premieres on 5 March 2020 on BBC One. The novel is set in an alternative history where black people (crosses) rule over white people (noughts). The TV adaptation focuses on the core themes of the book: prejudice, racism and forbidden romance.
7 of 11Sally Rooney- Conversations with friends
Conversations with Friends by Rooney has also been picked up by the BBC and will be made into a 12-part series. This story humorously comments on the bitter reality of relationships and friendships, told through the perspective of four main characters.
8 of 11Celest Ng - Little Fires Everywhere
This arresting novel is poised to set your screens alight in March. The show is based on the novel by Celest Ng that delves into the life of a free-spirited single mother who moves to Ohio with her daughter. The story revolves around the challenges they encounter when their lives entwine with a middle-class family in the neighbourhood.
9 of 11Eleanor Catton - The Luminaries
An adaptation of Eleanor Catton's novel The Luminaries is set to air later this year on BBC Two. The story is set in the nineteeth century gold rush in New Zealand and focuses on the character Anna Wetherell, who sails to New Zealand to begin a new life and is quickly drawn into a tale of love, murder and revenge. It will star Eva Green and Himesh Patel.
10 of 11Anais Nin - Little Birds
Little Birds is a collection of short, erotic stories from Anais Nin. The stories have been adapted by Sky Atlantic into a dramatic television series that stars Juno Temple. The infamous tales confront a selection of topics and themes and weave together stories of love, desire and politics.
11 of 11Jo Bloom - Ridley Road
Ridley Road will air as a four-part thriller on BBC One, but the release date is still TBC. The series is based on Bloom's novel of the same name and is set in 1960s London. The story focuses on the life of Vivien Epstein who is forced into undercover espionage when she follows her lover into danger.