Ladhood: Writer, actor and comedian Liam Williams reflects on teenage years in Garforth and success of TV show Ladhood

And so, for his first stand-up show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, his adolescence in the Leeds town of Garforth seemed an obvious subject matter. Through the lens of adulthood, he would look back on younger Liam, his trials and tribulations, the memories he made.

The foundations were laid for what would grow, in 2015, to become a radio show. Ladhood, he called it - tales of Williams’ teenage misadventures in Yorkshire, told through evocative monologues and flashback scenes.

A successful TV pilot followed, and Ladhood was adapted for screen, based loosely on Williams’ upbringing.

Now, the critically-acclaimed comedy show is set to conclude, with a third and final series on BBC Three.

As in previous runs, the noughties timeline of life for young Liam runs in parallel to scenes of Liam in the present day, as he reflects on his teenage youth in Garforth and tries his best not to make the same mistakes again.

In series three, young Liam, played by Nottingham-born Oscar Kennedy, stands on the threshold of adulthood, trying not to get side-tracked by the adventures on offer with his best mates Ralph, Addy and Craggy, played by Bradford actors Samuel Bottomley, Aqib Khan and Shaun Thomas.

“The young Liam is in his last year of sixth form and is facing up to going to university,” Williams teases of the upcoming episodes.

“He’s quite happy about it and ready to get on with it but he gets a curve ball when he finds out he’s expected to apply for Oxbridge, which he doesn’t think is for him. He just wants to hang out with his mates and have fun.

“Meanwhile, the older character is at a bit of a crossroads of his own, to do with his job, his flat and what he’s doing with his life really.”

“Craggy is same old Craggy,” Shaun says, “but he’s grown up a little bit more and he’s started taking fitness a little bit more seriously.”

“And my character likes to think he has matured a bit,” Sam chips in. “He’s got himself a sales job and looks at himself as a bit of a business mogul. He’s trying to become a bit more of a man I think but it’s not really working out too well for him.”

For Sam, Shaun and Aqib, working on the show has afforded them the opportunity to portray the life of teenagers in the region of the country they are from. “It’s a pleasure being able to represent where you come from,” Shaun says. “When you get a northern script and you’re based up north, you feel like you’ve got to get the job because you’re from here and then it’s really satisfying when you do get the part.”

A lot of people in Yorkshire and the north have connected with the show, 34-year-old Williams says. But it’s resonated more widely as well. “I think anybody who grew up in a small town, or in an environment they found boring - which is a lot of people in Britain - will have got something from it,” remarks the writer, actor and comedian.

It’s bittersweet to reach the final series, he says. “It’s been a great show and a great experience. But the premise was a coming of age and so you can’t keep it going forever.”

It’s a show that is nostalgic for the 2000s, the first two decades of which, Williams points out, do not have the same distinctive sense of era as the likes of the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.

“I think it’s been a nice refreshing surprise for people to look at the past 15 to 20 years and to recognise that a lot of time has passed and people of my generation have been through a change which is perhaps not recognised all that much in the culture,” Williams says.

Ladhood hasn’t just resonated with those who were teenagers in the noughties though; if the messages received by the cast are anything to go by, its depiction of teenage years has struck a chord across generations.

Oscar reflects: “I think what resonates with people is how much of an accurate portrayal it is of what it’s like to be a teenager in Britain, especially in the north.

“It’s such a clear representation of what young men go through and I think that’s what people love about the show. It’s so accurate, it takes people back to when they were 15, whenever that was.”

For Williams, it is coming up 20 years. His was an adolescence which, like many, was characterised by hanging out with friends and “creating our own entertainment”.

He had more than three mates, he’s keen to point out - but for Ladhood purposes, the various people with whom he whiled away the days are embodied into the characters of Ralph, Addy and Craggy.

“There’s not much going on for teenagers,” Williams muses, “and at a certain point, you’re past sitting on the swings all night and you’re not old enough to go to the pub.

“I suppose maybe these days young people stay in more and socialise online but I spent most of my evenings going out with my mates.

“Sometimes we’d play football but really we’d just go sit around and inevitably soft drugs and alcohol become involved.”

Creating Ladhood has helped Williams to shake his obsession with that time; these days, his mind is turning less and less to the rich memories of his teenage years and is more focused on the present.

“I would find I would be very easily transported back to being 15 and walking around Garforth on a Friday night with a bottle of cider or whatever,” he says.

“In a way that maybe I hadn’t let go of the past or I still wished I was that young with no responsibilities and everything was free and easy. As the series have gone on, that has changed and I’ve managed to let go of that a bit...

“If people who watch the show can get a bit of that out of it as well, a bit of perspective on their own life and how their own teenage experiences inform who they are as an adult, a bit of catharsis and entertainment as well, it’s been really worthwhile.”

Williams’ focus is now turning to his latest obsession - ecology, nature, food growing and gardening. And the climate crisis, “though that’s more of an anxiety than an obsession,” he says.

He’s about to start a master’s degree in ecology and sustainability, and plans to develop a couple of new scripts alongside it. He finishes our chat with a final nod to his youth.

“I guess I developed a bit of an affinity with nature as a teenager sitting in the woods all the time and smoking,” he says. “Though I didn’t think much of it back then.”

Ladhood is a BBC Studios Comedy Production produced by Joe Nunnery and executive produced by Josh Cole, Gareth Edwards and Liam Williams.

Series three starts Monday, September 5 at 10pm on BBC Three and as a boxset on BBC iPlayer.