The Inbetweeners - Who's who?
The Inbetweeners is a six-part series about four teenagers growing up in suburbia and is the first ever original UK sitcom commission for E4. It’s a world of futile crushes, sibling brawls, getting drunk too quickly, fancying the girl next door, casting aspersions on your friend’s sexuality and riding rollercoasters. Take a look at our guide to the characters...
Will
Will McKenzie is on a bad run. His parents have just divorced and to compound matters, his mum has moved him out of an independent school and into the sixth form at a local comprehensive. Will’s last school did a good job preparing him for the outside world – he’s smart, confident, well read, quick-witted and outspoken. Unfortunately for Will this isn’t the outside world, this is a comprehensive sixth form in the commuter belt and all these attributes make the other kids and teachers, deeply suspicious of him. It seems that the harder Will tries to fit in, the more he stands out.
Ever the enthusiast, Will intends to make the best of a bad fist. His efforts are immediately scuppered by the head of sixth who makes him wear a bright green badge that proclaims ‘Hi I’m Will. Stop me and say hello’. This might just as well read ‘please bully me’. Despite the twin handicaps of being the new kid and being a bit posh, Will eventually makes new friends, but they’re hardly the sixth form glitterati.
Simon Bird (Will)
Simon wrote and performed both series of the Channel 4 Radio Weekly Show. He is a member of the Sketch Group House of Windsor who debuted their show at the Edinburgh Festival in 2007. Simon will be a finalist at the Chortle Student Comic of The Year in 2008 and in August he is taking his new show ‘The Meeting’ to the Edinburgh Festival
Simon
Simon Cooper is Will’s first new mate. They share the same form class and Simon has reluctantly agreed to show ‘the new kid’ around the school. Despite early reservations, Simon soon warms to Will – mainly because he’s the only kid in school who doesn’t call him ‘boner’, a name he earned after developing an unwanted erection in the sixth form common room.
The romantic of the group, Simon is secretly in love with childhood friend Carli D’Amato. It was a secret until he drunkenly grafts ‘I Love Carli’ all over her driveway. It’s an unrequited love but who knows, if Simon wasn’t such a pratt around Carli maybe something could happen. That’s about a big an ‘if’ as you’re ever likely to find.
Joe Thomas (Simon)
Joe and his writing partner Jonny Sweet perform together with Simon Bird in House of Windsor. Jonny and Joe were one of five featured acts on Fremantle’s International New Media venture Project V – they generated new comedy material on a weekly basis for three months.
Jonny and Joe have been writing and performing comedy together since they met at Cambridge University in 2003. They staged their first hour-long comedy show at the Edinburgh Festival in 2006 and were subsequently nominated for the Writer’s Guild Best Comedy Newcomer Award for The Future, a surreal vision of the workplaces of the future, received excellent reviews:
Jay
Everyone has had a mate like Jay Cartwright. The sort of friend that in later life you look back on and think ‘why did I hang around with him?’. A potty-mouthed, verbal bully, Jay is constantly lying about his sexual conquests and daring feats. Even though there’s a disturbing lack of evidence to back up his astounding claims, Simon and Neil rarely pick him up on these fantasies, as secretly they want them to be true. Surely if Jay is getting some, they’re about to get some too? Will has no such hesitation in pulling Jay’s claims to pieces, and as a result battle lines are drawn and the two quickly become verbal sparring partners.
James Buckley (Jay)
James was just 11 years old when he appeared in his first West End play Whistle Down the Wind at the Aldwych theatre. Soon after this he also was cast in Les Miserables at the Palace Theatre. His television credits include 2001’s ‘orrible with Johnny Vaughan. James attended the Performing Arts College in Essex and enjoys writing music and playing guitar with his band.
Neil
Neil Sullivan is a boy for whom the phrase ‘in a world of his own’ was invented. Neil is always 20 seconds behind everything and everyone. He does sometimes say something that almost makes sense. Much to Neil’s horror, his unconventional dad – a single, middle-aged man struggling to raise a family after his wife walked out on them – is the butt of the other’s crude jokes – aspersions are cast on his fathers sexuality. Very occasionally, and much to the chagrin of the rest of the gang, Neil’s uncomplicated persona and slick dance moves will see him triumph with the opposite sex.
Blake Harrison (Neil)
During his time at East 15 Acting School Blake was involved in a number of theatre productions including Market Boy, The Good Person of Sichuan, On the Razzle and Richard III. He also played the part of Bob in The Accidental Lives of Memories at the White Bear theatre. More recently he has been involved in a short film Her Eyes Met with Mine.
Carli
Carli D’Amato is the girl that makes Simon’s heart race. Her family and Simon’s have been friends for years, but lately Simon (and every adolescent male at the school) has started to notice that little Carli has grown up. She is incredibly hot. Unfortunately for Simon, like most 17-year-old girls, Carli wouldn’t dream of dating a boy of the same age. And even if she did Simon hardly fits the bill of her perfect man – tall, athletic, handsome, and preferably with a car that’s not bright yellow.
Emily Head (Carli)
Emily has appeared several times at the Theatre Royal Bath with the Dorothy Colebourne School of Dance, including An Inspector Calls, Carousel and Fiddler on the Roof. Her television roles include Desperados (Grace) Doc Martin (Poppy) and Trial and Retribution (Natalie). Emily has won numerous local drama competitions including the prestigious Mid-Somerset Festival where she won Solo Shakespeare 2002 and Solo Acting 2003.
Catch The Inbetweeners at 10pm on Thursdays, only on E4. Series 1 is released on DVD on 2nd June 2008 and includes unseen extras such as audio commentaries, video diaries from the cast and deleted scenes.
e4.com/inbetweeners
