Simon Bird: The Inbetweeners wouldn’t be made today

Simon Bird says ‘The Inbetweeners’ “wouldn’t be made today”.

The ‘Friday Night Dinner’ star doesn’t think the 00s E4 comedy - which starred himself, Joe Thomas, Blake Harrison and James Buckley as four teenagers - is now for the archives due to the series containing “causal homophobia”.

The 38-year-old actor told the Daily Telegraph newspaper: “I honestly think it wouldn’t be commissioned today.”

After being questioned if this was because of sexism and other jokes, Simon said: “Yeah, and the casual homophobia.”

But the ‘Days of the Bagnold Summer’ director justified the show's legacy, saying the series - which spanned three seasons between 2008 and 2010 and spawned two movies - was supposed to be “an accurate representation” of teen life.

Simon said: “I rationalise it to myself by saying that at the time it was an accurate representation of the way teenagers talk to each other. Is that still the case now? I assume not.

“Although the programme was set in the 2000s, it was based on a pilot set in 1990, so even in the 2000s it wasn’t really an accurate reflection of how teenagers spoke.”

Simon called the Jimmy Carr-presented reunion, ‘The Inbetweeners: Fwends Reunited’, a “terrible idea” after it sparked numerous complaints in 2019.

He said: “That was just a terrible idea from the get-go. We all knew that. We all had suggestions about how it might be possible to do one that wasn’t totally embarrassing. Those suggestions were not heeded.

“Frankly, we got paid quite a lot to do it, and there was a certain amount of pressure from Channel 4.”

The ‘Everyone Else Burns’ star detailed how he “always wanted” to work in TV, but admits it was "scary" to taste some success so early in life.

Simon said: “I always wanted to be a sitcom actor and I assumed if it ever happened it would be because I did my time for 10 years and wrote on other shows and eventually got a part … but I somehow skipped those stages.

"I remember at the premiere for the second film, Iain [Morris, co-writer of 'The Inbetweeners'] took me to one side and said, ‘This will never happen again.'

“Part of it is scary, to have that success young. You’re like, ‘What will I do with the rest of my life?’ "