Skins
The
making of...
by
Bryan Elsley: series co-creator, executive producer and writer
In October
of last year I was pondering an upcoming meeting with Company Television
to discuss new formats for television drama. Sitting with my son Jamie
Brittain, an English student, I ran my slightly lacklustre set of drama
ideas past him:
“That’s all boring bollocks Dad.”
he remarked, rather unkindly I thought.
“So what would you suggest? Smartarse.”
I countered.
He sat blinking and thinking for a moment.
“You should do something for kids; but not the
usual crap. Get rid of the moralising, the constant pumping rock music
that old people seem to think kids like, the fantasy sequences, the
flashbacks, the wobbly camera work, the middle aged portrayals of emotions,
the stupid issue-based stories, the crap voiceovers, the glammed up
20-something actors who play them. Get rid of all that shite and do
something FUNNY instead.”
The next day, Company Pictures, amazingly, seemed to
like the idea and offered it to E4, who almost bit our hand off. The
fastest commission I ever got. Cheers Jamie.
So work
starts and the Skins Writers Group is born, with an average
age of 22. There are teenagers, schoolkids, comedians, artists, musicians,
and screenwriters, one of them me, one of them the amazingly talented
Jack Thorne (26) who has written two of our episodes as well as writing
for Shameless.
The group
would meet every Wednesday in the dingy basement underneath Company
Television to hash out our ideas and watch a lot of television together.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Laurel and Hardy, Gregory’s
Girl, Best in Show; we take it in turns to bring in our
favourites. We talk things over. Work out how to do it. Back each other
up. Eat. I never knew television screenwriting could be this much fun.
In one
corner is Simon Amstell, the presenter of Never Mind the Buzzcocks
and co-writer of episode seven, sitting hunched over a script idea with
Daniel, a seventeen-year-old black kid from the Hamstead Theatre Youth
Group. In another corner is Josie Long, fresh from her ‘Best Newcomer’
triumph at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival this year. She’s working
with Althea, a fiendishly clever kid of Indian heritage. Althea’s
so bright you forget after 30 seconds that she’s not 18 yet. She’ll
write an episode by herself next year. I just know it.
The room is packed and sweaty. We’ve been working
over Jamie’s first television script, episode five. He’s
almost died and come back to life to make it work, but he’s grinning.
The writers group like it. By tomorrow afternoon The Dawson Brothers,
our young ‘joke monkeys’ will have worked over the gags.
Jamie will have sent the draft to our perfectionist script editor, Chloe
Moss. No half measures for her. If it’s not good, it’s not
in - no matter how young and talented you are. Kids will have wandered
in and out of my office, making jokes, complaining, and eating. They’re
always eating.
A year
later and nine, one-hour episodes of Skins are in the can.
An amazing cast of 17-year-old Bristol kids - some of whom had never
acted in their lives before - have turned in subtle, complex and above
all, funny performances, far above my wildest expectations. They have
been led from the front by Nicholas Hoult, formerly the geeky kid in
About A Boy. He gives one of the most shaded and nuanced performances
by any actor, young or old, that I have ever met. While a gaggle of
celebrities - Harry Enfield, Neil Morrissey, Sarah Lancashire, Peter
Capaldi, Danny Dyer, Arabella Weir, Charlie Creed Miles, Josie Lawrence,
Geoff Hughes - to name a few, have played the hapless Bristol parents
trying in vain to stay in control of their teenage kids. We’ve
laughed all summer. I mean, really pissed ourselves.
I’ve
tried to think about what makes Skins different. I think it’s
that Skins reflects the nuances of teenagers’ lives,
which are as complex and as emotionally rich as any adults. We’re
so busy telling teenagers how to behave that we miss the whole picture.
We’re obsessed with drugs, with drinking, with sex. Young people
accept these things as givens. Lecturing them is hopeless. Understanding
them is impossible. You can only watch and wonder at how well the vast
majority of them survive. That’s what Skins is about.
And it’s funny. Will it work? I don’t know. But one thing
is for sure. It will be like nothing else you have seen before.
Skins
Series 2
The
Return of Skins
An Introduction by co-creator
Jamie Brittain
Episode Guide
Cast and Characters
Writers and Contributors
Skins
Series 1
April
Pearson (Michelle) Interview
Mike Bailey (Sid) Interview
Hannah Murray (Cassie) Interview
Skins Series 1 Episode Guide
Skins Series 1 Cast and
Characters
