The arrival of searing new series Adolescence could hardly be more timely. The drama dropped on Netflix just as it emerged that crossbow killer Kyle Clifford had searched online for misogynistic podcasts and watched Andrew Tate videos hours before murdering three female members of the Hunt family. Then again, such stories hit headlines with depressing regularity. Perhaps Adolescence would have felt unnervingly on-the-nose whenever it launched.
The initial idea came to its star, Stephen Graham, after a spate of distressing violent crimes. In 2021, 12-year-old Ava White was fatally stabbed by a 14-year-old boy in Graham’s home city of Liverpool. In 2023, 15-year-old Elianne Andam was attacked with a kitchen knife by 17-year-old Hassan Sentamu outside a Croydon shopping centre.
