Larkin about: YouTube generation finds dead poet’s society

Now a short film adaptation of Philip Larkin’s This Be The Verse – which starts with the lines: “They f*** you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do” – has been made by Yorkshire filmmaker Dave Lee.

His third collaboration with the Hull-born actor Sir Tom Courtenay, it takes the star’s reading of the poem and puts it in the mouths of young people, offering a new perspective on the familiar text.

Mr Lee said: “To keep Larkin’s work alive it’s important that it is represented on new media platforms and this film will allow web and social network users to discover or rediscover one of the most influential poems of one of the most popular post-war poets.”

Larkin Society chairman Graham Chesters said the short film captured the shock, humour and bleakness of the poem in “quite a transfixing way”.

It can be seen on YouTube by searching for “Larkin”, “verse” and “Courtenay”.