Stephen Graham’s New Series Adolescence is out now: Adolescence, one of the greatest new TV series in a long time and undoubtedly of 2025, is finally available to stream on Netflix. Many of us will undoubtedly be binge-watching it tonight or over the weekend, and we’ll all be wondering if this terrifying crime thriller is based on a true tale.
Adolescence, which was recorded in a single, unflinching shot, documents how the arrest of 13-year-old Jamie Miller (played by Owen Cooper in his first role) for the murder of a teenage girl who attends his school upends a family’s lives.
The Crown’s Erin Doherty portrays Briony Ariston, the shrewd clinical psychologist assigned to Jamie’s case; Ashley Walters plays Detective Inspector Luke Bascombe; and Stephen Graham plays Jamie’s father and “appropriate adult,” Eddie Miller.
The cast and crew of Adolescence have discussed the extremely unsettling environment in which this terrifying limited series was created, even though it was not based on any one actual incident.
Graham remarked, “I read an article in the paper about a young boy stabbing a young girl and it made me feel a bit cold. Then three or four months later, there was a piece on the news and, again, it was a young boy who had stabbed a young girl.
‘These are young boys, not men. It hurt my heart for many different reasons, predominantly as a father but also where we’re at in society for this to happen. And I knew who I wanted to write it, Jack [Thorne]. Jack is one of the finest writers, he writes the human condition so beautifully with such complexities.’
Thorne and Graham went on to say that they believe adolescence will lead to crucial family discussions that could help stop violence against women and girls in the future.
Thorne added, “Like Stephen said, it takes a village to make a child, it takes a village to destroy a child. It’s not just the parents’ responsibility.” Graham stated, “We don’t have the answers, we’re saying please begin the conversation,
Walters also expressed his confidence that any parent who watches this show will be inspired to ask their kids things they may not have previously been compelled to.
‘This story isn’t about who committed the crime. We can’t answer the question as to why he did it either but we raise the conversation,’ he said.
‘There’s no parent that’s going to turn off their TV, after watching this show, and not go into their kids’ room and say “What’s happening with you?” and if we can achieve that, we’re going in the right direction.’
Although the series was inspired by actual examples of young boys involved in knife crimes in the UK, Jamie’s story is not based on a specific event and is not a genuine story in and of itself.
‘We could have made a drama about gangs and knife crime, or about a kid whose mother is an alcoholic or whose father is a violent abuser,’ Stephen Graham told Netflix previously.
‘Instead, we wanted you to look at this family and think, “My God. This could be happening to us!” And what’s happening here is an ordinary family’s worst nightmare.
The actor and the writer added: ‘One of our aims was to ask, ‘What is happening to our young men these days, and what are the pressures they face from their peers, from the internet, and social media? And the pressures that come from all of those things are as difficult for kids here as they are the world over.’