The one with the lasting appeal MILLENNIAL

Friends is the TV show that works for all ages according to our writers

THESE DAYS it might be Bake Off or Grand Designs, but back in 1994 there was only one essential show to view…and it kept us glued to our tellies for 10 whole seasons.

So what was it about Friends that reeled us in and kept us hooked? It was new, yes, and glossy and funny. But there was also something more. We watched — and we identified. After all, Joey, Monica et al were 20-somethings, living in the big city, finding their way in work, love, life, and so were we. True, we were in North London, not Manhattan and none of us lived in a loft with a view. But if you skimmed over the details (in my case a poky flat with a dark brown ceiling, overlooking a railway line) this was us, this was our life. Small wonder that we never missed an episode.

I may not have hung out in a coffee house (possibly because I don’t like coffee) but, nonetheless, I found it refreshingly different to see people like me — albeit American, fictional, and impossibly glamorous versions of me — reflected on screen. The location, the reality might be different, but far easier to laugh off a bad day at work, a dating disaster, a crisis of confidence when they made these things seem universal.

I suspect I’m not alone in aligning myself to one character in particular whenever I watch a film or a series on TV. And in this case, of course, I was Rachel. It was the hair (let’s ignore the fact that my actual hair was a deadringer for Monica’s in The One in Barbados) plus I too had a grandmother with a secret cookie recipe. But, with the benefit of hindsight, I can see I was actually Geller through and through, all Jewish angst (Ross) and a desire for everything to be ‘just so’ (Monica).

As the Friends grew up so did my own friends and I. As their lives changed on screen, so did ours, albeit with (marginally) less will-they-won’t-theys and hilarity involving small monkeys called Marcel. But still, there were weddings and babies and the rest.

These days I rarely watch the reruns – but I can still quote swathes of the script by heart. For me Friends was the right show at absolutely the right time. Oh, for a 40/50-something reunion. ’LL BE There For You promised the ubiquitous theme music to the 90s sitcom. This, unbeknownst to me at the time, would provide an unreliable guide to my twenties. I was only aged eight when the first episode aired on NBC in 1994, and I lapped it up as a guide to adulthood. Friends was there for me when I got the first haircut that wasn’t dictated by my mother — a ‘Rachel’ of course — and the same character inspired my first job as a waitress.

I didn’t like waitressing much, and I wasn’t all that good at it, being prone to dropping crockery. But that didn’t matter because my friends would stop by and hang out to make fun of each other and gossip about who was dating who. It was Crouch End’s version of Central Perk.

Ten years of hair appointments pretty much involved me clutching a copy of whatever glossy magazine had Jennifer Aniston on the front. It was years before I admitted that layers weren’t my thing.

The programme provided all who watched it valuable life lessons. Some of them I learnt from, some, I didn’t.

Like the time Phoebe struggles to choose between two guys she is dating and instead of choosing