‘I didn’t expect Adolescence to have such an effect’

An executive producer of Netflix drama Adolescence has said she has received “lots of messages of gratitude” from parents motivated to have open conversations with their children about the issues it raises.

Hannah Walters worked alongside her husband Stephen Graham to create the series, which follows the case of a 13-year-old boy arrested for killing a female classmate.

The drama has not only won plaudits since its release but has also provoked debate about the issues it raises, including male rage and the impact misogynistic online influencers can have on young men.

Walters told the BBC she expected the series to have an impact but did not anticipate it having such a profound effect.

Speaking to BBC Radio Leicester, Walters, who lives in Leicestershire, said: “Stephen and I, we knew it was going to be impactful, we knew it was needed.

“But I did not, hand on heart, realise the profound effects it was going to have on people.

“Parents are sending me lots of messages of thanks, lots of messages of gratitude, because they’re opening those bedroom doors and talking to their children in ways that they hadn’t talked to them before.

“And I think that’s all we needed to do – give everybody a little shake and say, come on, it’s our duty now to make sure that this generation don’t get lost, because it’s so easy to lose them.”

The issue of how young people use smartphones, social media and the internet, often without their parents knowing what content they are looking at, is also explored in the drama.

Walters added: “We can be the best parents in the world, but unfortunately, one of the biggest parenting tools is in a child’s hand constantly, and that information is being filtered to them on a constant basis, so we need to be mindful of that.”

Since its release on 13 March, Jack Thorne who wrote the script with Graham, has called for Adolescence to be shown in both schools and parliament.

While Sir Keir Starmer, when asked about the drama at Prime Minister’s Questions, acknowledged the need to tackle the “emerging and growing problem” of the violence carried out by young men influenced by what they see online.