*This article contains Adolescence spoilers*
Adolescence is the series everyone is talking about – for good reason. When 13-year-old Jamie Miller (played by newcomer Owen Cooper) is charged with the murder of his female classmate, the question is not if he did it but why.
Blaming any one factor, influence, parent, friend or event would be a disservice to the subject matter, instead the series poses timely and urgent questions about the online radicalisation of teenage boys, the culture its creating and the epidemic of violence its resulting in. As Stephen Graham, the show’s star and co-writer, asked, ‘What is happening to our young men these days, and what are the pressures they face from their peers, from the internet, and from social media?’ What if this happened to our sons, in our homes and schools?
These are the questions Jamie’s clinical psychologist’s Briony Ariston, played by The Crown star Erin Doherty, is tasked with in episode three, which is set seven months after his arrest. While each of the four episodes is shot in one continuous take – a production feat that cannot be overemphasised – none feels quite as agonising as this one.
What follows is captivating cat and mouse dialogue where Jamie desperately attempts to clutch onto power – he mocks Briony’s questions, comments on her chest size, calls her pretty and at one point barks in her face – and ends with him unwittingly confessing to murder.
‘I wanted her to have a genuine investment in Jamie,’ Doherty tells Grazia, ‘and for us to portray that they’d had lots of meetings and had got to this level of emotional connection so that when it breaks down you really feel the rug pulled from beneath her feet.’
‘We know this boy has done this crime, so we’re trying to pick at the psychology of it,’ she continues. ‘As Briony, I had this desperation for him to say something that might give a morsel of hope for this kid. So when he admits to it, you witness her lose all of that hope and essentially have an emotional breakdown.’
In a series that asks so many questions about modern masculinity, and one that was written and produced by men, it feels important that the psychologist is a woman. ‘What’s at the crux of this whole story is male rage and exploring how it manifests,’ the actress explains. ‘I think it was really integral that you got to see it on the flip side. It added a layer of richness, but also it was able to pick away at Jamie’s relationship with women, and you wouldn’t have had that if it was a male psychologist.’
During their conversation, we witness Briony tease out Jamie’s broader feelings towards women, his expectations of sex and relationships, his disregard for consent and his lack of understanding about the severity of his actions.
The tension at the heart of Adolescence comes from the sobering reality that being a child and a violent criminal are not mutually exclusive – at least not in today’s society. ‘I don’t think people are born good or evil,’ Doherty is quick to posit. ‘We wouldn’t have been doing our jobs if we didn’t highlight all the different possibilities that can get someone from being an innocent 13-year-old to committing such a disturbing crime. That’s what the story is doing. Whether you think your kid would do it or not, it doesn’t matter, all it takes is for something to subconsciously embed and you don’t know what could come of it.’
What makes this message so impactful, although no less terrifying, is the quality of Doherty and Cooper’s performance. ‘I felt as held by [Cooper] as I hope he did by me. It was an actor’s dream in the sense that it was just tennis, and we were just knocking back and forth.' Doherty explains that they spent two weeks rehearsing the episode and finding its rhythm and one week shooting it over and over again, capturing it in the final take.
Surely a daunting prospect for any actor, Doherty said shooting in one continuous take is what drew her towards the show to begin with. ‘I grew up doing theatre and I was like, that’s got to be the perfect combination of the two.
‘You turn up to rehearsal and you just don’t want to let anyone down. You don’t want to be the one to drop the ball,' she adds. 'In those two weeks, Phil [Barantini] was bringing our creative skills together and making it so we were one mind. If Owen was standing over there, I’d fill in the gap and then the camera team would come with us. That’s such an astonishing thing to do because it takes so much work.’
The result is, as Doherty says herself, ‘exciting and dangerous’ and supremely naturalistic. It’s a performance that has earned Doherty praise as ‘one of the finest actors of her generation’ and Cooper the similar title of a 'once in a generation talent'. If it wasn’t such a devastating conversation, or one with real life consequences, it would be easy to watch them play acting tennis all day.
Nevertheless, Doherty is proud to be part of a series that starts the conversation – one we cannot afford to avoid any longer. ‘It’s a frightening prospect that our younger generation can fall through the cracks,’ as she puts it. ‘I don’t think there are any obvious solutions, but let’s just have the conversation.’
Adolescence is available to stream on Netflix now
Nikki Peach is a writer at Grazia UK, working across pop culture, TV and news. She has also written for the i, i-D and the New Statesman Media Group and covers all things TV for Grazia (treating high and lowbrow shows with equal respect).