If you ever doubted that youth is fleeting, consider this – it’s 10 years ago this week since the first episode of Skins aired.
The programme that launched the now-Oscar-nominated Dev Patel to superstardom as well as introducing us to Nicholas Hoult as someone other than “the kid from About A Boy” now has an alumni closer to their 30s than their teens – but the full frontal look at life as an angsty teen seems as relevant as ever even a decade on.
One of the most recognisable stars from those first two series of the Channel 4 drama is April Pearson, who played cheater Tony’s (Hoult) long-suffering girlfriend Michelle, and she has nothing but fond memories of the programme that shocked viewers by not shying away from drink, drugs and sexuality.
She said of the launch: “We’d had the best time ever shooting a cool TV show, we were a bunch of 17-year-old kids who got taken out of school and got to hang out every day and do cool stuff. It was a complete revelation and shock that it took off in the way it did.”
Acknowledging that it was pretty groundbreaking for teens to be seen getting up to, well, normal teen behaviour on mainstream TV, April said she’d never been particularly embarrassed by the prospect of her first major screen appearance involving moments most of us would have tried desperately to hide from our parents.
“It was my birthday and I had a viewing party at home with my mum and dad and all of their friends and all of my friends and I knew the content of the show, obviously, so I can’t have been that worried about them seeing me doing stuff,” she recalled.
“I remember people always asking me, ‘are you embarrassed about your parents seeing you drinking and swearing and kissing on TV?’
“But no, I don’t think I ever was. I was just so happy about doing the thing I wanted to do, and they were so good about it, they never made me feel like they disapproved. Prewarned is forearmed.”
Part of the appeal of Skins was that it was so rare at the time to actually see teens playing teens, as April explained.
She said: “We were so used to shows like The OC and Dawson’s Creek where it was 26 and 27-year-old actors playing teenagers. I think it felt like a voice for young people.
“It’s a really good place to showcase young talent because it’s very rare that young actors have a storyline in anything that makes them the central character. They’e always the son or the daughter of the main character.
“It was the first time people had seen a younger actor take centre stage and have a full blown storyline about them.”
Michelle, Tony and co may have been the stars of the show, but there was some pretty amazing casting when it came to their parents – who included Arabella Weir as Michelle’s mum, Peter Capaldi as Sid’s dad, Harry Enfield as Tony’s dad, and Bill Bailey, Neil Morrissey, Nina Wadia, Mark Heap and Sarah Lancashire taking on other parental roles.
April said: “It was so cool not only having parents who were famous jobbing actors, but also to have an array of comedy actors who were available to help us with the various dark elements of the show.
“Danny Dyer was my stepdad in the first series and now he’s running the Vic (in EastEnders). It’s just crazy to think about. And now Sid’s dad is The Doctor. How could you not learn from having them on set?”
She added that the on-the-job experience was better than any school in helping to forge careers.
“Directors who wanted to work with those actors plucked them out of Skins because they knew that they could do the job.
“Dev was shooting Slumdog Millionaire at the same time as the second series of Skins and flying backwards and forwards. He was coming back from India and coming into Skins and saying, ‘it’s so hot there, you’ve got no idea, it’s going to be a huge smash hit’.”
April was speaking just before Dev was announced as one of this year’s Oscar nominees for his supporting role in Lion, and she said that she would definitely be cheering him on.
“Oh god, always. When Jack O’Connell (who appeared in series three and four) won the Rising Star award at the Baftas, any time any of them do something really cool and get recognised for it, I’m absolutely 100% behind all of them and they’re so deserving of it as well.
“I haven’t seen Lion yet but lots of people say it’s an amazing performance and that the film has had huge critical acclaim. I think he’s going to be fine.”
The actress said that there were plenty more programmes featuring younger actors now, including an upcoming Netflix show by Skins writer Bryan Elsley that she is part of.
She said: “I’ve just finished a show for Netflix called Kiss Me First written by Bryan Elsley who wrote Skins and he’s adapted a novel and the actors I was working with were teens.
“The world went crazy for Stranger Things last year and the central characters in that were 12. It’s definitely more normal now but I like to think we started the trend.”
All seven seasons of Skins are available to watch now on All 4 at http://www.All4.com/programmes/skins
