Adolescence: The Netflix drama that will have every parent talking - Join our watch thread plus Q&A with producer and cast

[CeriMumsnet]

Premieres 13th March 2025

Read Hannah and Christine's answers to your questions here.

If you’re after a gripping new series to get stuck into, Adolescence is set to be the show of the year - and it’s one that will chill parents to the core. This tense British crime drama begins with the shocking arrest of 13-year-old Jamie Miller for the murder of a classmate. But as the investigation unfolds, the series delves into the unsettling realities of modern masculinity, online radicalisation, and the pressures facing today’s teenagers.

Filmed in South Kirby with a raw, unflinching realism, Adolescence isn’t just another crime drama - it’s a conversation starter. If you were lucky enough to catch the Mumsnet exclusive preview, you’ll know just how haunting and thought-provoking it is, with themes that resonate long after you finish watching.

Watch the trailer here:

Q&A
Adolescence Executive Producer Hannah Walters and actress Christine Tremarco who plays Jamie’s Mum will be joining us for a Q&A in the next couple of weeks, so make sure to share your questions about the show for them below.

• Hannah Walters is an actress, producer and co-founder of Matriarch Productions, an entertainment production company who aims to provide a much-needed platform for underrepresented voices and stories in the UK. Their credits include BOILING POINT (2021) and most recent TV series for the BBC. Hannah has two children with her husband Stephen Graham.

• Christine Tremarco is a British actress who along with playing Jamie’s Mum in Adolescence can also currently be seen in Channel 4’s drama series, The Gathering and in the BBC’s Kidnapped: The Chloe Ayling Story, directed by Al Mackay. Other screen credits include the BBC’s Responder opposite Martin Freeman, a series regular in Sky’s Wolfe, and Shane Meadows’ BAFTA winning series The Virtues opposite Stephen Graham.

So, what do we think? Will you be watching? Does the premise resonate with you? Let’s chat below! 👇

Hi @GinnyMCFunny the choir at the end was director Philip Barantini's idea, we went to Milnthorpe School where we filmed and used their school choir. We also used the actress that played Katie in the vocals too, which we felt a very fitting thing to do.

I saw a video of that Blue woman who slept with many men and it wasn't in the least bit sxy. It was as if she copied some of the gross things in USA style prn that most women find gross, such as B Js so deep they start retching or vomiting.
There's a video on YT called Russel Kane explains UK vs US p rn and it's true. When I was young and saw the reader's wives section in one of those UK magazines, I had never felt as better about my body in my life, as it was ordinary looking women with lumps and bumps that men found s xy.

We’ve just finished it and the one thing that’s niggling at me is how much all the commentary about it has focused on incel culture, whereas I didn’t feel the series demonstrated that Jamie was accessing such material to a large degree. Katie called him an incel and the female police officer referenced Tate but bar Jamie liking some models photos on insta I didn’t feel we got a sense that he was sucked into incel culture. It felt like his own perceptions of masculinity, his sense of rejection, his outsider-ness and victim mentality were more relevant factors. While there’s overlap, I think many young men who aren’t necessarily radicalised by incel culture would experience similar things but all the dialogue about the show seems to be about incels. I’m rambling but it I expected incel ideology to be a much more explicit feature of the show based on all the opinions I’d seen about it.

The police officer's (Ashley Walter's character) son was clearly really familiar with the incel terminology and idealogy, and there was no indication that he was watching Andrew Tate religiously either. I think that was the point - that it's pervasive and infiltrates under the radar, without the parents realising. The copper had absolutely no idea that his son was even aware of this stuff, let alone be able to 'educate' him on it. Maybe the message was that incels don't have to strut about carrying a neon sign labelling them as such like Andrew Tate does, but it can be the innocent looking baby faced teens who do well at school and are a bit shit at football. These harmful messages can infiltrate developing teen minds outside of dark bedrooms late at night too.

My other half, who is definitely not an incel but is a man, said it's honestly shocking how prevalent incel content is just... there online. He watches a lot of gym Reels on Instagram and said it's such a short pipeline from them to eg Andrew Tate on a podcast spewing misogynistic crap just as he's scrolling.

He obviously scrolls right past but I can see how easily a younger more easily influenced person who perhaps feels a bit lost and misunderstood might watch (and then get fed further content as a result etc).

I signed up to Netflix because of the hype about Adolescence. When I heard it talked about incels, I imagined it was going to show how there's a danger online for children from USA society, and the USA men who sit online filling every comment section as a chance to promote abuse against women and taking away their confidence. Also the anger and hatred between men and women from the USA, such as telling men they're disgusting if they haven't been c*rcu mcised and women calling themselves feminists while talking nonsense. Or the types who make websites encouraging men to abuse women while travelling. Yet all it seemed to me was as if they blamed the girl for him murdering her because she called him a name online. All the sex talk with a 13 year old felt odd too, and why wouldn't a 13 year old be celibate anyway, when the law says under 16 year olds can't give consent?

Binged the whole thing. Thought that the acting was brilliant, Steven Graham he's always great & plays these gritty challenging roles really well, the boy was really convincing.

I don't know who's did the camera work with these close ups for lengthy periods but that didn't work for me, felt like they were actually in my lounge & was a bit unnecessary.

Also the boy was showing a lot of difficult behaviour at the end which seemed uncharacteristic of what we'd seen previously, & this toxic masculinity is what would be seen all the way through in reality I believe. So I thought that bit was off from centre too.

But a very interesting current subject that needs more attention for sure.