The Inbetweeners are coming home to Kent. The adolescent comedy’s four stars and its co-creator are attending a special screening of the movie as well as taking part in an audience Q&A. Chris Price found out how the county inspired the biggest TV phenomenon of the last decade.

Across three TV series and a movie spin-off, the nation laughed uncontrollably at the Inbetweeners. For the uninitiated, it was the tale of four geeky school mates trying to fit in, get laid and work out what was going on in life.

For many of us it triggered memories of that struggle between childhood and adulthood – otherwise known as sixth form. A time perfectly described by the show’s writer Damon Beesley as “being an adult with stabilisers on.”

Plenty of Damon’s own recollections will come flooding back when he is reunited with the show’s four stars next week for a Q&A and screening of the record breaking film – the highest grossing British comedy movie of all time – at Gravesend’s Woodville Halls. Growing up just down the road in New Barn, Damon sees the event as “a spiritual homecoming” for the show, given he spent his own inbetweener years in Gravesend.

“It really is a homecoming. I think the projector in the Woodville Halls is hung pretty close over the spot where the real life version of some of those events happened,” he laughed.

The events he refers to occur in the work experience episode, when Simon – the character most like him, played by Joe Thomas – finds he has a young admirer at the school disco. When Damon – pictured below, right, with Inbetweeners co-creator Iain Morris – was invited to take a look around the theatre ahead of the screening by a friend at Gravesham council, it all came back to him.

“At this under 18 disco the boys are at, Simon ends up with this girl on the side of the dancefloor. As I was being shown around the Woodville Halls I looked at the spot where this actually happened.”

Talking at the London base of Bwark Productions – the company Damon set up with Iain – it transpires much of the county inspired episodes from the Bafta-winning TV series. A favourite is from the Caravan Club episode, which took place in Southfleet.

“What happened to Simon – that was me,” he laughed. “A friend of mine did say to me the immortal line ‘fill that up for me’, and handed me a condom. I had never seen a condom before.

“We used to be terrified of anyone from Gravesend or Northfleet when we went out,” said Damon, who went to Longfield Upper School, which became Axton Chase and is now the Longfield Academy.

“I remember going to the Woodville Halls discos and all the hard lads being from Northfleet. It was very territorial. It was like a very much milder version of those postcode gangs you get in London. It was terrifying going into Gravesend to hang out on a Saturday afternoon, just in case someone detected that slight non-Gravesend accent.”

Sadly for fans, Damon was adamant there will be no more Inbetweeners on TV, although he admitted he could “never say never,” as there has been talks about making a second movie. Despite their success, getting all the four stars – Simon Bird, Joe Thomas, James Buckley and Blake Harrison – together for the Gravesend screening was as simple as firing off an email.

“I asked them if they would like to do it as a favour to me and I think they are all hugely curious about what I might have been like at that point in my life, so they very kindly agreed to do this.

“I think they want to come down and ask some embarrassing questions about me as a teenager.”

‘They are all very funny on set’

Given the Inbetweeners is a semi-autobiographical account of writers Iain and Damon’s adolescent years, it is unsurprising that much of the show’s banter spilled out into real life.

“There was a famous moment in series one when all Joe had to do was walk up to a girl and then walk away when she said ‘go away’,” recalled Damon.

“Now, bear in mind it was his first series of us doing anything on TV so it was a big thing, for all of them, and it was quite a difficult moment to nail as a comic scene.

“It took us lots and lots of takes. Joe Thomas was getting concerned that he wasn’t getting it right. We were about to go for take 10, Joe had psyched himself up, the crew shouted ‘take 10’ and James Buckley, who was standing next to him in the scene, leant across and said ‘oops, double figures’.

“Joe went to pieces. He came flying out complaining about James’ behaviour and we all had to sit there and go ‘yeah, but it was funny, wasn’t it?’

“That said, Joe is spectacularly mental – a lovely guy but can be very intense. James and Joe, from day one, got this really strong bond. They just hit it off straight away even though they are quite different in terms of their background and the people they are.

“James always had this ability to wind Joe up at inopportune moments, which were spectacularly funny.

“Simon Bird is equally mental. They are all very funny on set. Blake has always traditionally been the most professional and the nicest member of the team. He is genuinely the most respectful and well-mannered, so over the years he has been bullied the most – mercilessly and very unfairly. That is what makes it funnier.”

What a bleeping difference

Across the pond, the Inbetweeners did not fair so well, with a US-version of the show cancelled by MTV after its first 12-episode series, due to low ratings.

“The Inbetweeners is a really realistic, almost autobiographical look at 16-year-old boys’ lives in this country,” said Damon. “There were certain things about it that had to be toned down for American TV. Some of those things were very core to what audiences liked about the show and the reality people felt when they watched it. It felt like a piece of their past and felt honest.

“It is difficult to do that on Amercian cable TV because they have got a much bigger market to consider in terms of the audience. It is such a huge country that their lines about what might be deemed offensive are different. Also some of those things are quite culturally British.”

Damon loved watching the originals , when they were broadcast on BBC America.

“They had to bleep quite a lot of it and whoever was doing the bleeping didn’t run it by us. They would bleep out some words and leave in others. It took them a while to get their heads around the lingo. Then they took the whitewash approach and by the end of the second series you couldn’t work out what was going on in any of the shows.

"Everything was bleeped.”

The Inbetweeners Movie is shown on Friday, January 25, at Gravesend’s Woodville Halls with a pre-screening Q&A with writer Damon Beesley and the four stars. Starts 7.30pm. Tickets £10. Box office 01474 337774.

For a review of the Inbetweeners Movie, click here.