Helen Archer | On 15, Apr 2020

In My Skin returns to BBC Three for Season 2 on 7th November 2021. This mini review is based on Season 1 and was originally published as part of a BBC Three reviews column.

Up-and-coming screenwriter Kayleigh Llewellyn debuted her accomplished pilot for this over a year ago, and the follow-up episodes, now available in this five-part box set, prove it was no flash in the pan. Billed as a comedy drama, this nevertheless does not play high school hi-jinks for laughs. Painfully portraying the teenage experience in all its highs and lows (though mainly lows), it is a very grown-up affair – dark, dirty, gritty, emotional, and entirely unforgettable.

Gabrielle Creevy plays 16-year-old Bethan, who, while attempting to maintain a ‘normal’ teenage life, with all the trials and tribulations that entails, is also grappling with much deeper worries. Her mum (Jo Hartley) is bipolar, while her father (Rhodri Meilir) is a deeply dysfunctional alcoholic. Bethan must navigate her schooldays with the extra pressure of keeping her deepest traumas hidden from even those closest to her.

It’s a dark subject matter, perfectly pitched by some excellent performances. As Bethan, Creevy is enormously relatable, developing an intense crush on one of the popular girls at school – Poppy (Zadeiah Campbell-Davies) – and spinning a story of a wonderfully mundane family life to impress her. But even her two best friends Lydia (Poppy Lee Friar) and Travis (James Wilbraham) are in the dark about just how bad things are at home. Only her gran (played perfectly by Di Botcher, who is given a wonderful turn of phrase) knows the truth.

The writing is given life by pitch-perfect performances (special shout-out to Laura Checkley as Mrs Blocker, Bethan’s PE teacher, who could carry a whole show of her own). But it’s with Bethan that the audience suffers and rejoices, in a programme that seemingly effortlessly takes the viewer back to those powerless teenage years, when pleasure and pain seamlessly commingled.

 

In My Skin is available on BBC iPlayer until January 2022.

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