A recent breakfast TV interview highlighted an awkward difference between the BBC’s Naga Munchetty and Kemi Badenoch. Questioned about the Netflix drama Adolescence, the Conservative Party leader stated she’d not followed the series and likely wouldn’t. Her ministerial duties do not require the viewing of fictional programmes. Munchetty countered the show was central to important discussions on masculinity, smartphone use and misogyny.
Badenoch replied she was already engaged with these issues and didn’t need to view a drama to understand them. She compared Munchetty’s questioning to being obliged to watch Casualty to grasp NHS challenges. The exchange became uncomfortable as Munchetty pressed Badenoch on what the BBC presenter labelled important societal debates. However, is Adolescence and the resulting debate, societal or a culture and identity obsession within a woke bubble in London?
Mrs Badenoch did have a point. Despite the media hysteria, UK viewing figures for Adolescence hover around the 4.5 – 6.5 million mark. According to the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board, the first episode garnered 6.45 million viewers in its debut week. Subsequent episodes lost viewers, with episode two attracting 5.9 million viewers, episode three, 5.1 million, and the final episode, only 4.7 million – about the same as ITV soap Emmerdale.
With early ratings comparable to Death in Paradise or Britain’s Got Talent, Netflix can claim a top-rated show. However, thanks to the long, slow, painful death of British television, it still means that well over 90% of the population didn’t view.
Losing a third of its audience across four shows ties in with the audience (rather than the critical) response. The Rotten Tomatoes review aggregation website shows Adolescence a 70% approval from the public in contrast to 100% from the critics. The main reason given by downvoters was that the programme was boring. In other words they, unlike mainstream media critics, failed to connect with it.
On social media, the response was similarly mixed. A racial disconnect emerged, with numerous real-life incidents involving Black and Asian stabbers being contrasted with the white perpetrator depicted in the Netflix drama.
For the series that dropped on 13th March centred on a normal family’s world turned upside down when 13-year-old Jamie Miller is arrested for murdering a schoolmate. The charges against their son (the father played by Stephen Graham) force the Millers to confront ‘every parent’s worst nightmare.’
Mainstream media’s critical acclaim was both worldwide and universally positive. The Times of India described to its readers an examination of guilt, innocence and weight of perception that stays with the viewer long after the drama ends. Concluding Adolescence not just to be a show but to be ‘a reckoning.’
Emma Stefansky of The Daily Beast recalled a story about systems of society unequipped to handle young generations brought up on a constant drip of internet, and the cruel, predatory ways in which it’s weaponised by their peers.
The Guardian gushed even by Guardian standards, hailing Adolescence as a near-perfect drama while lauding its powerful performances and unflinching exploration of youth violence and toxic masculinity. Critic Lucy Mangan praised “the closest thing to TV perfection in decades,” noting the series’ emotional depth and standout performances.
According to Ms Mangan, the programme gave a raw portrayal of a 13-year-old boy’s descent into violence and sparked national conversations about online radicalisation and the influence of social media on young minds. The Guardian commended Adolescence for its artistic bravery and a societal relevance marking it as a landmark in contemporary television.
Much of the critical acclaim highlighted technique. Tradecraft included innovative single-take episodes portraying a sophisticated blend of cinematic realism, psychological nuance and cultural commentary. The documentary-style, naturalistic lighting and handheld shots, critics claimed, created an immersive, grounded aesthetic. People who understand such things reported a sound design integrating ambient noise alongside minimalist scoring.
Perhaps it was too realistic for Prime Minister Keir Starmer who stated in the House of Commons that it was a ‘very, very good documentary’. Viewed with his children, he found it a difficult watch that ‘hit home hard’. Whether this is true or whether Starmer and Badenoch are putting distance between each other for political purposes is difficult to tell. What we do know is that Starmer wants the series to be shown in schools.
Besides the discrepancy between critical and audience reception, there sits a contradiction surrounding the setting.
Much has been made of Netflix partnering with Tender, a charity focusing on promoting healthy relationships. In developing resources for teachers, parents and carers, Tender aim to facilitate discussions on the show’s themes of misogyny, toxic masculinity, online radicalisation and the challenges young people face in the digital age.
The charity’s registered office is in London’s Islington Green. As a private limited company, a registered office sits on the capital’s Holloway Road. According to their website, Tender began in 2003 when delivering their first programme in five London secondary schools. Since then they have expanded ‘pan-London’ and ‘are expanding into other areas in the South East.’
The charity has a special focus in the South London borough of Croydon with the implementation of the RE:SET project between 2017 and 2020. This initiative collaborated with four local schools to develop a ‘whole school approach’ to preventing gender-based violence. According to themselves:
‘The project culminated in a comprehensive toolkit designed to support schools in fostering environments that promote respect and equality. Tender’s programmes in Croydon and beyond aim to empower young people aged 5 to 25 to build positive attitudes towards relationships, thereby preventing domestic abuse and sexual violence.’
All well and good, but then why was Adolescence set in the North? Filmed in July and August 2024, the majority of studio shooting was carried out at Production Park, a facility partway between Wakefield and Doncaster. Other scenes were shot on location in nearby South Kirkby as well as South Elmsall and Sheffield.
March 2024 submissions to the Charity Commission show Tender received about £2 million in donations in the previous year. About half of this came from MOPAC. Who they? Step forward and take a bow Puffin’s favourite Sadiq Khan. For MOPAC stands for the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime. The mayor in question being Sir Sadiq, Mayor of London.
The show was filmed during a difficult and violent summer with minority ethnic-based violence and rioting in places such as Manchester Airport, Rochdale, Gillingham, Southend, Leeds and Bristol. After the murder of three girls by a Rwandan in Southport, tensions went beyond the boiling point and resulted in widespread White Lives Matter protests.
From the outset, not least because of the source of its charity partner’s funding, Adolescence couldn’t address violence through the lens of immigration, race, Islam or London. While being filmed, sensitivities multiplied. By the time the completed work dropped onto streaming, mainstream media had congealed the previous summer’s violence into a particular type of coverage.
Adding to their woke rules, narratives of toxic masculinity, social media, radicalisation and misogyny are obligatory while while mention of immigration, London, race and Islam are taboo. It is into this narrative that Adolescence fitted to perfection. Hence woke mainstream critical adulation existing alongside a mainly disinterested or lukewarm public.
In a rare MSM deviation, James Watson’s review in The Spectator appeared as a dissenting voice. As often, the dissident made a salient point: ‘While the script and acting are definitely terrific, I wonder if the enormous level of acclaim is partly due to how neatly it chimes with the newly fashionable received wisdom about boys.’
A received wisdom which, even Mr Watson is unable to add, scapegoats ‘boys’ in order to avoid calling out black, Islamic and immigrant violence that victimises our boys and girls.
© Always Worth Saying 2025
