Ian Youngs

Culture reporter

Owen Cooper has been praised for his “truly remarkable performance”

Viewers and critics have heaped praise on Netflix’s hard-hitting drama Adolescence, with many hailing it as a landmark TV show.

The four-part British series was released last week and is the most-watched show on the platform around the world over the weekend.

The Times’ Tom Peck described it as “complete perfection”, a view echoed by the Guardian’s Lucy Mangan, who said it was “the closest thing to TV perfection in decades”.

Fans on social media ranged from US director Paul Feig, who called the first episode “one of the best hours of television I’ve ever seen”, to Jeremy Clarkson, who called it “masterful”.

Netflix

Stephen Graham co-created Adolescence and stars as dad Eddie

Adolescence shows the aftermath of the stabbing of a teenage girl, with a 13-year-old boy from her school arrested for her murder.

Jamie, the young suspect, is played by newcomer Owen Cooper, with Stephen Graham as his dad.

Its story shines a light on the corrosive impact of social media and misogynyst influencers on some teenage boys.

Graham said he was inspired to make the show after seeing two separate reports of boys stabbing girls to death.

“I just thought, what’s going on in society where this kind of thing is becoming a regular occurrence?” he told BBC’s The One Show.

“I just couldn’t fathom it. So I wanted to really have a look and try and shine a light on this particular thing.”

Male rage

Writer Jack Thorne said they wanted to “look in the eye of male rage”.

The central character had been “indoctrinated by voices” like Andrew Tate’s and “voices a lot more dangerous than Andrew Tate’s”, Thorne told Radio 4’s Front Row.

Erin Doherty, who plays a child psychologist, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “This show has the bravery to just peel back the layers and go, let’s talk about this thing, because we’re still dealing with it today. There are still issues cropping up in the news today.

“So all we can hold ourselves accountable for is having the discussion, and hopefully that’s what it does. It just allows parents, aunties, uncles, even just friends, to engage in the conversation.”

Netflix

The third episode, featuring Erin Doherty as a psychologist, was singled out by some viewers

Each episode was filmed in a single, uninterrupted take.

In the Guardian, Mangan said its technical accomplishments “are matched by an array of award-worthy performances and a script that manages to be intensely naturalistic and hugely evocative at the same time”.

She added: “Adolescence is a deeply moving, deeply harrowing experience.”

Peck’s review in the Times began: “Wow. Just wow. I’m tempted to type out the word ‘wow’ a further 700 times or so, followed by, ‘Don’t miss Adolescence on Netflix,’ and then be done with it.”

The Telegraph’s TV critic Anita Singh said it was “a devastating watch”, adding: “It is a drama so quietly devastating that I won’t forget it for a very long time.”

Singh said the single-shot technique “can feel like a gimmick” but that the acting is “phenomenal”.

Graham is “the best actor working today”, but “the truly remarkable performance” is by Cooper, she wrote.

“He moves between vulnerability, anger, bravado and fear. What he does here is astonishing.”

Fantastic performances

Elsewhere, Deadline’s Jake Kanter wrote: “Adolescence is as flawless a four hours of TV drama I have ever seen. It lingers in the mind long after the credits have rolled. Astonishing telly.”

Rolling Stone’s Alan Sepinwall said it was “among the very best things – and an early contender for the best thing – you will see on the small screen this year”.

The New York Times’ Margaret Lyons called it “a rich work of social critique”, describing the standout episode, the third, as “one of the more fascinating hours of TV I’ve seen in a long time”.

On BBC Radio 5 Live’s Must Watch, Hayley Campbell said the drama doesn’t attempt to solve the problems it raises.

“It’s bringing it up, it’s looking at it. It’s about the rise of misogyny, especially in young boys, brought about by people like Andrew Tate, who’s namechecked in this, but only once. It’s not about him.

“The drama is more about the horror of how little control you have over your kid and what they’re doing on their phone.”

Fellow critic Scott Bryan added: “The performances are absolutely fantastic. I would say this is flawless. The person, though, I think who deserves the most recognition is 15-year-old Owen Cooper.”