I've spent 12 years building Big Boys. It's terrifying now it's over | Jack Rooke on the end of his Channel 4 comedy © Channel 4 / Patch Dolan

I've spent 12 years building Big Boys. It's terrifying now it's over

Jack Rooke on the end of his Channel 4 comedy

Big Boys returns to Channel 4 on Sunday for a third and final series, set in the central character’s final year at Brent Uni. Here  writer and creator Jack Rooke talks about putting his life on screen, addressing difficult topics with comedy and bringing the story to a close.


How are you feeling about the third and final series of Big Boys?

I feel very lucky and grateful, but I cannot lie, I’m really relieved [laughs]. I wrote, filmed, edited series two, handed it into Channel 4, and wanted to have a couple of months off, a holiday, a break, which ended up just being one week [laughs]. 

When I came back, the contract was on the table and it was like, ‘You need to start writing series three immediately.’ Series three begins with the gang on holiday, which one could argue was perhaps also so that I could see the sun for a couple days of our shoot.

At any point did you experience writer’s block? Did you ever think that you couldn’t do another series?

I always knew what I wanted the ending to be, where I wanted the series to go… writing series two was harder than series three because I was like, ‘OK, what do I do in the middle of what I know is the eventual ending?’ I’ve known the finale episodes ever since I wrote the pilot.

Series three is one of the more difficult, emotional. ones to write. Each one of the series has had its own journey, where I’ve had to retrace the steps of my own life to try and write as authentically but also comedically as possible. I always want any retelling of the past to be funny. Funny first, emotion second. 

But series three, I wasn’t sure at the beginning of the process if I wanted to do it. I was like, ‘Do I really want to retread this path again?’ And I also had written series two, episode six and been like, ‘Yeah, this maybe is the end.’ It wraps up the story about grief… We knew we might have a strong chance at making a series three if we wanted, but I just didn’t know if I wanted to write it. 

Then everyone's schedules came back, and the decision became a ‘Right, if we don’t do this imminently, then we won’t film it or make it until a year and a half or two years later’ and I suddenly thought, it’s now or never. Just cause we're all getting older, I don't want to be in my 30s writing a teenager’s experience and also Jon [Pointing] would have slapped me if I’d said, ‘You’re going to be filming Danny in 2027!’

How surreal has it been to see your life – portions of it – play out screen?

At times it's super surreal, especially if we are filming at my actual university and I can remember where teenage me threw up a kebab or drank too many cheap ciders. 

However Big Boys is semi-autobiographical, so some stuff is completely made-up, and we make space in some scenes for improv and ad libs which are really fun to watch play out. I luckily have a lot of creative control over the edit, so I have accepted what personal stories are in the mix by the time it's on air.

And then thankfully I feel very lucky Big Boys has found a loving, dedicated fanbase. Series one critically, I can remember being like, ‘Wow, it’s four stars across the board.’ A part of me was almost annoyed because in my mind I was thinking, 'I want to make something controversial! A contrarian part of me wanted it to be either one star or five stars, you either get it or you don’t!

Actually, what I was met with was such a lot of warm love and genuine care. People really felt that the show was the first of its kind in terms of blending that straight best friend/gay best friend storyline in a sitcom. 

Then series two, it was, ‘Right all the reviews are five stars now, people thankfully still love it.’ I was, kind of, like, ‘I’ve got to take more of a risk with the final series,’ because the show has achieved those accolades now. 

Series three was a case of, ‘Let’s go out of our comfort zone, knowing we have built an audience and critics that love the show'.

But for this final series, who knows? I have to accept that some people might not love what we’ve done. For others, I hope they feel it’s the correct last chapter. I think the final series honours both my Edinburgh Fringe shows which Big Boys was based on, as well as the collaborative genius of the whole cast and creative team I've met since then. They've definitely all got me here, and I'm very grateful to have told this story with them.

Big Boys cast on sofa

Is it fair to say that with this series you have taken a big swing?

We’ve done a massive f***ing swing! I’ve spoken to a few comedy writers that are like, ‘Well, you play it quite safe with Big Boys, it’s very warm, everyone’s really nice to each other.’ And in my mind, I think, well, there’s quite a few bitchy jokes in there, and some spiky moments. 

With series three, I went, ‘If everybody thinks this is safe, then I’m going to shake it up a bit!’ Those stories are difficult topics to cover, especially with the last 10 years that we’ve had of the mental health conversation. 

Often the conversation has never got beyond this, talking about talking. It’s never gone into a more nuanced, grey area. It’s always, ‘Make sure you open up to your mates’ …there’s so much more that we need to do in terms of access to services, or long-term support for people who are opening up, and giving people more of an education and a mental-health literacy that it is an up-and-down journey. 

Big Boys, especially our final series, aims to show a slightly more complicated, authentic set of experiences. And I don’t think that’s a particularly safe thing to write about.

Your story is a deeply personal one, especially when it comes to loss. Do you feel you have been able to tell everything you wanted to say?

Big Boys feels like a culmination of 12 years’ worth of work. Ever since I was 18, performing comedy, weird storytelling, poems, things like that, I’ve been talking always about grief and loss and loneliness, but also trying to make jokes and have really funny, specific, niche, silly stories be the vehicle for that. 

A lot of my work from across the years is in Big Boys. Even one of the first rubbish poems I wrote in 2011 is in series three. 

Throughout my career I've sort of stuck with those same topics and every project I’ve done from my Edinburgh shows to Radio 4 comedies to a book I wrote, all of it has been like research leading up to the TV show. And I finally felt like I got it right with Big Boys. 

So, whilst it’s incredibly cathartic now to wrap it all up, it’s also terrifying because it does feel like a very definite end to a huge chapter of my whole career. Now I can write something completely different and try and figure out what other stories I want to tell and have a bit of a new start. Maybe I'll write the gangster movie I've always wanted to.

Big boys cast on swan pedalos

You’ve popped up a couple of times in the series. Can we expect one last appearance?

My PR answer would be… there is a narrative device that is set up from the very last line in series one, episode one, where the narration turns the ‘you’ on to Danny, and you hear this shift, you realise the narrator is talking to  Danny. This final series tries to wrap that narrative device up. That’s all I’ll say.

Published: 4 Feb 2025

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