Nick Page on the arrogance of youth...

I love the arrogance of teenagers – like Alex Green writing on these pages yesterday – who assume shows like The Inbetweeners are aimed at them just because they're about them. The show’s writers and stars left school years ago, and the humour, the pathos and the subjects are all concentrated and refined by separation from the events.

For those still at school the depiction of anyone else’s school, and childhood, will seem false due to the direct and immediate daily comparison. A few years down the line, and a bit of compare and contrast with people from different backgrounds, and we start to realise that many experiences have a universal translation.

The intellectual necessity of condensing our memories as we get older means that soon only key events, characters and conversations remain. As we write our own histories we increasingly cast ourselves as the hero, and the mundanity of the day-to-day existence of school life fades. I'm in the odd position of having a partner who only left school a couple of years ago, and in that time the change in her descriptions of school and her relationship to the people she schooled with has been dramatic.

Inbetweeners is far more than a catchphrase-led, playground-aimed comedy for rude kids in the manner of Little Britain. I watched every episode without noticing that 'bus wanker' could be grabbed in the manner of 'the only gay in the village'.

I'm surprised to learn that the show has any appeal for those still at school, as it seems to have universal appreciation among people of my age group, and I’m 40. That characters hide their emotional pain by reverting to their normative patterns of hierarchical horseplay can only surprise those for whom every emotional event is a landmark. The characters, although caricatures, are well drawn. Their relationship mirrors the memories of friendship that we have from our schooldays. The humour lies in the intense layering of discomfort, in the way that at 20 years distance from the events, we tell and retell stories where each 'and then...' adds another layer.

Just as very few teenagers, let alone schoolchildren, have the life experience to practice comedy, so it can be argued that any comedy that relies on translation through experience will be beyond their reach. A few months ago I was talking to writers on Russell Howard's Good News about the fact that I didn't get the show, and they told me I wasn't supposed to. A show about silly news stories is ideal for those to whom so much is new. Old cynics like me can just tut, and go back to reminiscing about when we were young, and about how there was this new kid who had a fit mum, but was otherwise just a wanker with a briefcase.

Published: 1 Feb 2011