Is Adolescence based on a true story? The terrifying truth about what inspired the Netflix miniseries
Netflix has another hit show on its hands.“Adolescence,” which is the No.
1 series on the streamer right now, tells the story of a 13-year-old boy who is arrested for the stabbing murder of his female classmate.The miniseries starring Stephen Graham, Owen Cooper and Ashley Walters has four episodes that are all shot in a single take each.Since the show’s March 13 release, viewers have been wondering if the series is entirely made up or if it’s based on a true story.Here’s what to know about the influence behind “Adolescence.”The plot of “Adolescence” was inspired by the real-life epidemic of knife crime among young people that’s occurring in the United Kingdom.“We’d been asked to create a one-shot piece which was going to be a series, so we were coming up with the possibilities of what we’d make it about, and I’d read an article in the paper about a young boy stabbing a young girl,” Graham, who also created and wrote the series with Jack Thorne, said in a recent interview.“It made me feel a bit cold,” the British actor shared.“Then about three or four months later, there was a piece on the news about a young boy who’d stabbed a young girl.
They are young boys, they’re not men.And it was completely the opposite end of the country.”Graham was in the car with director Philip Barantini when he came up with the concept of the show.Barantini, 44, told The Wrap, “In the UK, there’s a real problem with knife crime, certainly in the younger generation.
There have been a series of of young boys who were killing young girls with knives, and it was really upsetting.That was the seed that we wanted to explore, and send a bit of a message and maybe spark a bit of a conversation.”Knife crimes are on the rise in England currently.
According to the Office for National Statistics, there were around 50,500 offenses of knife attacks in the year ending March 2024, compared to the 27,000 offenses between 2012 and 2013.Data from the Min...