Adolescence has left viewers with plenty of questions and writer Jack Thorne has explained why there are so many blanks.
Adolescence is streaming on Netflix and it has been hailed by critics as some of the best TV in decades. The four-part crime drama follows Jamie Miller (played by Owen Cooper), a 13-year-old boy arrested on suspicion of murder.
Accused of killing Katie, a girl at his school, he works his way through the criminal justice system from a harrowing ordeal at the local police station to an intense discussion with his psychologist.
The unique story was told in a one-shot format, meaning there were no scenes or breaks in filming. The cast and crew had a rehearsal week before filming two versions of an intense, hour-long sequence.
Writer Jack Thorne explained to 5Live that this filming format was why the audience was left filling in the gaps themselves, as they simply did not have the scope to tell the entire story.
Much of Jamie’s journey through the legal system, including his ultimate fate, is left out of the series and he opened up about his reasoning.
Explaining the one-shot sequence and its impact, he said: «It forces the camera to do something and it also forces the pen to do something.
«As a writer you have to think about corridors, you have to think about staircases, you have to think about all of those technical things.
«You also can’t tell all the story. So you are telling an incomplete story, because there is only so much you can see in an hour.
«So Jamie’s legal process, anything that the family is doing in terms of mourning the loss of Katie – any of these things you can’t cut to.
«And so you are sort of stuck in something and that forces you to be partial, and it forces you to be incomplete.
«I think that causes the audience to lean forward because they know they are not going to get all of the story. They have got to work.»
The series had to be heavily scripted so there was no room for error, but there were a couple of moments when the cast deviated slightly.
During episode three, when Jamie is with his psychologist Briony (Erin Doherty), he is seen yawning and Briony asks: «Am I boring you?»
Star Owen explained how he smiled at this response as it had not been in the original script.
Adolescence is streaming on Netflix
