TV Pick of the Week: Adolescence - review by Yvette Huddleston

It opens with an early morning armed police raid of a modest family home on a quiet residential estate. To the shock and consternation of his parents and older sister, 13-year-old Jamie (Owen Cooper) is arrested on suspicion of murdering his classmate Katie the night before. The family’s initial response is that this is ludicrous, of course their son isn’t a murderer, it must be some terrible mistake. As a viewer you are immediately thrown in the chaos, fear and anxiety of such a situation, heightened by the filming technique of using one continuous shot for each episode which escalates the tension and growing sense of unease.

The action then moves to the police station where Jamie chooses his father Eddie (Graham) as his appropriate adult, to be present in the police interviews. Jamie denies all involvement, but pretty soon it becomes clear that this has not been some awful error and that the police have compelling evidence against him. As Jamie is assigned a solicitor and the police continue their investigation, the narrative focus shifts from whether he did it to why.

We witness the recriminations of Jamie’s parents, how they feel they have failed their son and what they could have done differently. The grim, devastating truth of the matter is that in the modern world with young people constantly connected to their phones giving them access to an online world that their parents may be completely unaware of, this scenario could play out in almost any family. Social media feeds are full of potentially harmful content and young minds are at risk of being fed dangerous warped ideologies.

The ensemble cast all create entirely believable authentic characters to the point where you almost feel you are watching a fly-on-the-wall documentary. Graham is as impressive as always and the way in which he conveys his shock and anguish, especially in the opening episode as his whole reality is shaken by the realisation that his child is indeed a killer, is one of the finest pieces of screen acting you are likely to see this year. The series also features an astonishingly accomplished performance from newcomer Cooper as Jamie – his encounter with child psychologist Briony (Erin Doherty) in episode three is an incredibly powerful sequence.