\u201cIn a life that\u2019s had some incredible lows, I do feel like I\u2019m having some incredible highs at the moment, which is really lovely,\u201d said Jack Rooke, creator and writer of Channel 4\u2019s brilliantly bonkers and heartfelt comedy Big Boys<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n When it first arrived on our screens in 2022, the series <\/span>received glowing reviews<\/span><\/a> and instantly gained a legion of adoring fans, including Russell T Davies \u2013 \u201cHe\u2019s been such a brilliant champion of the show\u201d \u2013 and Kathy Burke.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s amazing,\u201d said Rooke. \u201cI had a sleepover with Izuka Hoyle [who plays Corinne]. We woke up in bed together \u2013 we\u2019re friends, there\u2019s nothing going on, don\u2019t worry [laughs] \u2013 and I looked at my phone and it said Kathy Burke had tweeted me and honestly, I screamed. Izuka thought something awful had happened. And then we just took the rest of the day off and did a bit of shopping [laughs].\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The first season, which explored the unlikely friendship between Jack<\/span> (Dylan Llewellyn), who is based on a version of Rooke, and Danny (Jon Pointing), who was inspired by an amalgamation of his real-life friends, as they took on their first year at Brent university in 2014, was also nominated for several BAFTAs, but was pipped to the post by fellow Channel 4 comedy Derry Girls.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI feel like it\u2019s a bit of a sister show to Big Boys in a way,\u201d said Rooke. \u201cI don\u2019t think there would be Big Boys without Derry Girls. And Lisa [McGee, the creator and writer of Derry Girls] really has been a huge supporter of the show. I spent a lot of the last year of the awards season sat with Lisa and constantly losing to her \u2013 and rightfully so. If you\u2019re going to lose four BAFTAs, you might as well lose them to Lisa McGee. I\u2019m very grateful to her.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n But Rooke did pick up an award from the <\/span>Writers\u2019 Guild of Great Britain, <\/span>and with season 2 every bit as hilarious and wholesome as its first outing \u2013 possibly even exceeding its debut \u2013 more accolades are surely on the way for one of the best new comedies to come out of the UK in years.<\/span><\/p>\n Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI feel very lucky that the show was received by people exactly how I wanted it to be,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople understood all the nuances. And I think viewers were surprised. I remember people seeing the season 1 trailer and asking, \u2018What is it? Is it like The Inbetweeners?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI always wanted to make it so that you couldn\u2019t really guess what it was going to be so that the depths of the show and the depths of Danny, in particular, could then really surprise you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n When viewers were first introduced to Pointing\u2019s character, he appeared to be your typical Jack-the-lad: cock-sure and crude, a penchant for polo shirts and The Pull, and if you cut him open, he\u2019d bleed Red Stripe. But beneath his bravado is a sensitive soul who cares \u2013 often too deeply \u2013 and proves to be just what Jack needs following the death of his dad while also <\/span>navigating being an openly gay man for the first time in his life.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s often reflective of real life, especially when you\u2019re going to university,\u201d said Rooke. \u201cYou think that you know everyone and you think that everyone\u2019s a certain trope, and then you get to know people and you find that there\u2019s so much more, their own highs and lows, and their own demons and idiosyncrasies.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Jack and Danny\u2019s unlikely friendship is still very much a feature in season 2 \u2013 Britain would have rioted had they been torn apart \u2013 but Rooke has shifted the focus slightly, expanding on the route of <\/span>Danny\u2019s mental health problems and giving the supporting characters, such as cousin Shannon, far more to do.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHarriet Webb is one of my favourite actors of all time, she\u2019s brilliant in everything she\u2019s ever been in,\u201d said Rooke. \u201cI wanted there to be one character in their 20s that didn\u2019t go to university but was still just as ambitious, still just wanted to have as much of a fully rounded life and start a family and have their own career. And she\u2019s a real classic Watford girl to me, and I wanted to celebrate that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In another pair of hands, Shannon could be nothing more than a punching bag for cheap laughs \u2013 at the beginning of season 2 she finds out she\u2019s pregnant after a night of passion with her ASOS delivery driver. But Rooke only ever treats all of his characters with the utmost love and affection because for him, it\u2019s personal.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI have spent my life being brought up by working class women, my aunties and my cousins,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m from a very big matriarchal family. And I\u2019ve seen how culture, especially in the last 20 years, has derided a lot of working class women. It\u2019s made them the butt of the joke, especially in comedy, and especially middle class comedians at the Fringe the five or six years I was coming up.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cSo Big Boys to me, yeah there\u2019s still going to be silly jokes, Shannon\u2019s still going to say daft, outrageous things, but alongside that there\u2019s these moments of real emotional intelligence, being fully compassionate and leading with her heart on her sleeve. And you can sometimes mock those traits, but you can also mock <\/span>and<\/span><\/i> celebrate them all at once. And there\u2019s a kindness to that that I really wanted to lead with in the second season particularly.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Cousin Shannon is at the heart of season 2\u2019s most moving and powerful scene: the birth of her child. In an inspired move, Rooke chose to show that moment alongside the death of Jack\u2019s dad Laurie, cutting between his final moments in the hospital as Lawrensienna Milla Papadopoulou\u2019s life was just beginning.<\/p>\n \u201cI watched The Royle Family Queen of Sheba episode over Christmas,\u201d said Rooke. \u201cCaroline Aherne and Craig Cash wrote an incredible episode and that was definitely a huge inspiration to me. Caroline is my hero and I\u2019m gutted every day that I\u2019ll never get to take her for a packet of crisps at the pub.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The decision to juxtapose the arrival of Shannon\u2019s baby with Laurie\u2019s goodbye as Nanny Bingo clings to him for the last time is breathtaking television, and not only the show\u2019s crowning glory, but a strong contender for the best scene of the year.<\/p> \u201cI think it\u2019s my proudest achievement in my whole entire career,\u201d said Rooke. \u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019ll ever feel like I\u2019ve written the truth like that ever again. I\u2019ve been writing about grief my whole career. I started doing really bad poems when I was like 18, 19 at comedy nights. And it\u2019s always been about that experience of losing someone. And I really felt like it\u2019s taken me 12 years to get to a point where I could write a scene like that.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s rooted in something truthful and optimistic, and to me that is the most crucial thing. I feel like I\u2019ve watched so many things about grief that didn\u2019t leave me with a sense of life moves on and that\u2019s OK. <\/span>Normally, it\u2019s life moves on, and that\u2019s scary. A<\/span>nd that\u2019s true, but there\u2019s a real beauty in new people coming in a<\/span>nd that cycle, which I know sounds quite on the nose, but I think I wanted to show that really directly, visually, one against each other, life and death, because I do think you forget when you\u2019re in the throes of grief that anything potentially new and beautiful could ever come. And quite often, it eventually does.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Rooke\u2019s first Edinburgh show Good Grief, an earlier iteration of Big Boys, came out 10 years ago, and that has largely been his focus ever since, which <\/span>technically makes him \u201ca bit of a one trick pony, but my trick is really good\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve tried out a lot of these jokes that are in the show in front of live audiences,\u201d he added. \u201cI\u2019ve workshopped the sitcom live on stage, and I\u2019m really grateful, in a way, that I\u2019ve been able to fail and experiment a lot. I\u2019ve done some really s**t live shows, I\u2019ve been crap quite a few before it got to Big Boys,<\/span> so I\u2019m proud of 23-year-old me who was just like, \u2018No, I\u2019m sticking with this one thing, I know that I want to tell this story\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhen you\u2019re a writer, actor, performer-y type person, you\u2019re constantly being asked what\u2019s your new thing, and everyone\u2019s expected to have five or six issues or stories they can tell, but <\/span>I think there\u2019s merit sometimes in sticking to your guns.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Another character who features more prominently in season 2 is Yemi, played by Olisa Odele, whose friendship with Danny, in particular, has deepened, resulting in one of the season\u2019s most important interactions: a conversation about chosen family.<\/p>\n It follows Danny\u2019s dad Dennis bringing his birthday party to a grinding halt after revealing his true intentions for reaching out to his estranged son, which further alienates Danny and leads to Jack uncharacteristically lamping him.<\/p>\n As a term that\u2019s often associated with the LGBTQ+ community, it can feel off limits to those who don\u2019t identify as such. But by having Yemi extend that to Danny, it\u2019s another example of the inclusivity that is at the heart of Big Boys, and key to its success.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if this is the correct term, but there\u2019s a protectionism in Big Boys within the gay-straight friendships,\u201d said Rooke. \u201cThey\u2019ve got each other\u2019s backs. There\u2019s a genuine allyship that doesn\u2019t need to be overly prescribed or talked about or shouted about. But for every moment that Danny has looked after Jack, I really wanted there to be moments where Jack and Yemi look after Danny. It\u2019s about saying we can be as inclusive as we possibly want, and that also includes the vulnerable, straight white guy [laughs]. And I felt like that sentiment is even more powerful when it\u2019s stretched beyond the queer community.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n That conversation also led to Rooke himself appearing in the series, but only briefly.<\/p>\n \u201cI was going to say all of that stuff to Danny, and then I suddenly thought this feels like something Yemi would say,\u201d he added. \u201cHe\u2019s one of the most popular people I know. I went to his birthday party and it was spilling out the door and I just thought, I bet Olisa connects with this bit of writing.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAnd Yemi is also such a deadpan, sometimes quite cold character. He\u2019s a bit ruthless, and I just thought to have this moment of him intervening and him being so generous and loving towards Danny, I thought that would just be more impactful on screen.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And that\u2019s not the only time Rooke appears on screen. In the finale, he walks through the hospital in the final moments before climbing into a black cab, the door of which is being held by Laurie, as the melancholic yet hopeful Seasons by Future Islands plays out.<\/p>\n It should have felt trite or over-cooked, but instead it\u2019s a beautiful conclusion to one of the most affirming, sincere pieces of television I\u2019ve ever watched.<\/p>\n \u201cWe filmed a few different endings and I thought if this is the final ever episode of Big Boys, if we don\u2019t do any more, then I wanted to end it on this moment where you\u2019re back in the cab, and the narrator and Laurie are like everyone\u2019s alright,\u201d said Rooke.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAnd I do sometimes feel like I have that connection with my dad still. I still ask him questions in my mind and I still hear his voice, it\u2019s still very present to me. And so I just thought that was a really lovely way to end. And I\u2019d love to do more Big Boys but if we don\u2019t, <\/span>it feels like a really nice place to leave them.\u201d<\/span><\/p> \n
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