Netflix Adolescence: The three devastating real-life cases that inspired Jamie's story

Actor Stephen Graham says there are three tragic real-life cases which helped him come up with the idea for the hit Netflix show which has earned rave reviews

Actor Stephen Graham has opened up about the real-life inspirations behind his Netflix hit Adolescence. The star says the idea for the drama sprang from THREE specific reports he’d watched on the TV and read in the press.

Graham, who co-created and wrote the drama with Jack Thorne said "there was an incident in Liverpool, a young girl, and she was stabbed to death by a young boy. I just thought, why? Then there was another young girl in south London who was stabbed to death at a bus stop. And there was this thing up North, where that young girl Brianna Ghey was lured into the park by two teenagers, and they stabbed her. I just thought, what’s going on? What is this that’s happening?”

Apart from Ghey who was murdered in 2023, Graham doesn't elaborate to the Radio Times which two other cases he could have been referring to. But one could be the tragic murder of 12-year-old Ava White in Liverpool, who was stabbed by a 15-year-old in Liverpool city centre in a row over a social media video, in 2021. The other could be 15-year-old Elianne Andam who was killed at a bus stop in Croydon by a 17-year-old, in September 2023.

In a seperate interview at a BAFTA screening, Graham revealed how the various news reports had left him "cold". He added: “I’d read an article in the paper about a young boy stabbing a young girl, and it made me feel a bit cold. “Then, about three or four months later there was a piece on the news.

“And it was a young boy, again, who had stabbed a young girl – and they are young boys. They’re not men. And it was the complete opposite end of the country.”

Graham also says how Channel 4 documentary series 24 Hours in Police Custody was the inspiration for the way in which the first episode played out. Talking further on the inspiration for the series, Graham says that after hearing these unspecified news reports, he felt compelled to look into them.

He said: “It shocked me. I was thinking, ‘What’s going on? What’s happening in society where a boy stabs a girl to death? What’s the inciting incident here?’ And then it happened again, and it happened again, and it happened again. I really just wanted to shine a light on it, and ask, ‘Why is this happening today? What’s going on? How have we come to this?’ ”

The four-part drama, filmed in one continuous shot, was released on Netflix on Thursday 13 March and stars Graham as the father Eddie Miller and Owen Cooper and his 13-year-old son Jamie.

The show explores the rise of incel (involuntarily celibate) culture. This is when those unable to find a romantic or sexual partner and blame women and girls as a result.

“You look at it and you see that we’re kind of all accountable to an extent,” Graham told Sky News.

“There’s failings within the school system, there’s situations where the education system can look at this, look at what’s happened with that kind of rise in these misogynistic tendencies.”