‘It’s just a show with so much heart’
◆ Ahead of its return to Channel 4, Jessica Rawnsley sits down with Big Boys creator Jack Rooke and stars Dylan Llewellyn and Jon Pointing to talk about the hit show
It’s warm. It’s tender-hearted. It’s simultaneously hilarious and melancholic.
Big Boys, the semibiographical comedy written and directed by Jack Rooke, is back for a second series.
The show swings around Jack, played by Derry Girls’ Dylan Llewellyn, as he navigates coming out, university, grief and mental health, alongside his best mate Danny, played by Plebs’ Jon Pointing.
Theirs is an honest, sensitive, open male friendship, both struggling and both supporting one another.
Ahead of series two coming to Channel 4 on Sunday, we sat down with Rooke, 30, Llewellyn, 31, and Pointing, 36.
Jack, what’s the experience of fictionalising your life and filming in your home town, Watford?
JR: It’s so real. I love it. It is surreal because it’s like retracing my own personal history. It’s a bit like being on Who Do You Think You Are?, except I’m not finding out that any of my ancestors are old money rich barons or anything exciting. It’s just me taking everyone to the same kebab shop I used to go to and pointing out, ‘Oh, we used to get shisha pipes in that weird Persian restaurant there’. I went to university ten minutes from home so when we’re shooting at the uni, we’re also around the corner from my mum. It’s lovely, but I’ll be excited when my past becomes my past, if that makes sense.
What accounts for the wide appeal of Big Boys?
JP: Its subjects and things that people can relate to. It’s just a show with so much heart. And I think that’s the biggest part of it, is the heart, and the likeability of it. This series does feel like it has become a sort of family show. A lot of people come and say to me, ‘You know what, it’s so nice to see something good and nice, and something that is at the core about love’.
JR: When I first started writing Big Boys, there was a real spate of shows where the characters were always being quite competitively mean to one another. And I just had a sort of rule in Big Boys where I thought that considering there’s going to be lots of difficult topics to discuss, I really want these characters to be as lovely to each other as possible. And for them to always kindly be choosing one another as they explore themselves and figure out these struggles. I think the biggest thing for me of series two is the idea of friendship and family and how your friends can often become your family.
DL: Exactly. And that’s what Big Boys does really nicely, because you get friendships where they just make fun of each other which can sometimes be a bit problematic because you don’t feel comfortable to open up. Whereas this is the
perfect balance where they’re in a safe space to open up to each other and be accepted by one another. But after they’re accepted, they can banter and it’s like a family vibe. And I think Big Boys is really special that it does that.
Male mental health is still such a complex issue, how important is it to tackle that and open up those conversations?
JR: I feel like there’s still such a long way to go, and we’ve really encouraged a lot of men to talk about their issues but we haven’t necessarily equipped the people receiving those admissions of depression or anxiety or struggles, with the tools to know how best to deal with
it. We have to empower people not to be worried to get it wrong when they’re talking to someone who has opened up. I want Big Boys to be a really refreshing take on male mental health and not just regurgitating the same old platitudes. There’s a real function in what these characters are going through.
DL: And given the amount of people that have reached out to us, obviously the show itself has done that. It has done that in what seems like quite a unique or new way. When people do reach out they all just seem to be so grateful. The people that get in touch with me, they’re not really asking for anything. It’s more just like, ‘Thank you.
That feels great’. We all know what it feels like when it’s like, ‘Uh, not alone. Great’.
JP: People on social media or in person say it really touched them – and that might be the stuff about male mental health or the relationship between Jack and Danny, they’re the two things that I tend to get most. And most people just say thank you and are really warm about it. They feel seen.
Why is comedy a good format to explore these topics? DL: In my opinion, it’s the right one. It’s definitely the best way of dealing with things. And I don’t mean that like, ‘I’ve just got to make a comedy show’, but in terms of when you laugh, that’s the moment when you first sort of think, ‘Oh, I might be able to do this actually.’
JR: I think that especially when I was a kid and losing my dad, me and my mum just used to find humour was the best way of breaking down the awkward barriers that you have in talking about something. And also, if you speak to anyone scientific, they’ll tell you crying and laughing are the exact same physiological response. They trigger the exact same parts of you to release that thing. I just think comedy naturally is a really great way of confronting more difficult topics, definitely.