With The InBetweeners movie out this week, it’s fair to say fans – which by now means a good portion of the country – are tucking semis into belts.
When we say fans there’s an inclination to tap the stereotype demographic: toilet humour teens, emerging twenty-somethings and nostalgic thirties – mostly male – relating to the madness of adolescent sex-pursuit or cringing fondly at the memories.
But it never hurts to gain a real live adult’s perspective on The InBetweeners and what makes the show tick, especially one as opinionated and insightful as the coital Buddha that is Simon’s dad, Mr Cooper, who’s never shy of offering sage words to the four boys who embody the nation’s awkward youth.
Martin Trenaman is an acclaimed writer and comedian who has worked with the biggest names in UK comedy. Writing for Lee Evans and Sean Locke, scribing shows such as Nevermind the Buzzcocks, and acting in hit series such as Phone Shop, Trenaman the stand up beat Mighty Boosh deity Julian Barratt to the 1994 So You Think You Are Funny award.
“Julian … where’s he now? I’m living the dream”. He says.
The Essex-born comedy practitioner is enjoying a relentless schedule, garnering publicity for the InBetweeners film whilst also drumming up interest for November’s new series of Phone Shop on E4. Although he intimates he misses the immediate buzz of stand-up comedy, he’s an in-demand comedy actor.
“I had to film a pilot for Sky at the same time as I was filming The InBetweeners and we slotted in one day when I thought I had the day off The InBetweeners. It hadn’t occurred to my agent or me that The InBetweeners might be a night-shoot.
“So I finished shooting the InBetweeners at about four in the morning, was home at about ten past five and was picked up at five past six to go filming.”
Trenaman’s interview was of surprisingly good insight into the film and behind the scenes. As a more mature cast member who has worked his way up the comedy food chain, he’s in possession of more perspective than would show in an interview with the younglings of the cast for whom success has come early.
The schoolboys we’ve come to know and love – Jay, Simon, Will, and Neil – have left their A-Levels behind for a what Trenaman refers to as a “shagging holiday” in Spain where their trans-national, amateur sexual predatory is manifest.
“The film is standalone, you don’t have to have seen the series to understand who the characters are, they are quite cleverly reintroduced to an audience who might never have seen the series.”
“I think it’s probably for the same demographic – seventy to eighty percent 16 to 30 year olds – but I’ve had people in their fifties come up to me in the street saying it’s hilarious and they love it.”
“It is pretty timeless: those teenage years. It doesn’t matter what era you came from, it’s pretty similar really.”
His conversational, laid back manner lulls me into a false sense of security, perhaps I do a disservice to other cast members who I can imagine being a little more stealthy and dismissive when it comes to plot secrets.
These publicity interviews can often be a lesson in futility where the cast pat each other on the back, stick to the lines, and get hyper-protective over their project and its content.
But Trenaman – a regular down-the-pub type geezer – apologises for not being able to divulge too much about the film: “I feel like I’m in the Commons select committee saying ‘No. Yes’. But I can’t give too much away. I’m like the Murdochs.
“Iain (Morris, writer) will have my fucking bollocks off if I give it away.”
This is in response to my question: does Jay (the liar) get his comeuppance? And does it all end well.
The only thing I’m able to ascertain as something of a slight spoiler/ insight is into the appearance of Carly – long-time interest of hapless lovefool Simon.
“I think Carly is in the film” he says.
His position as the mature and seasoned journeyman of the project is apparent in one anecdote from filming – the movie as well as the series – where his professionalism jarred with the leads’.
“They (the boys) tend not to have that many lines. What drove me slightly nuts – over the three series and the film – there was always quite a lot of car action, dropping them off in different places.
“They know The Office script verbatim and they would go through that. It’d be the twentieth time I’d heard it and they’d still be pissing themselves laughing while I was trying to remember my lines.”
The film he describes as “a journey into teenage angst and vulgarity” is about the four boys but – as with the series – Mr Cooper plays the closest ‘normal’ father figure. Jay’s dad is a vile sociopathic menace, Neil’s a clueless closet homosexual and Will’s notable by absence. Although Mr Cooper is the more pedestrian representation of a man in the film, his shtick is his verbose, inappropriate advice on all things sex.
“He is astonishingly inappropriate.”
“He’s a cringingly embarrassing dad, but he has a good soul really; he doesn’t mean any harm. Any embarrassing dad worth his salt doesn’t know he’s being that embarrassing unless he’s doing it as a game, and he’s not.
“He’s trying to be one of the boys, but he’s trying to say: ‘I’ve been there, now you listen to this: don’t shag near a window, certainly not an open one.’”
Sage words, strong advice, and a tip for life.
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