'You work your arse off to impress yourself - I've done that and I'm proud of it'

As 'Big Boys' reaches the end of the road, Nick Hilton meets creator Jack Rooke and the cast of Channel 4's affecting bittersweet sitcom to explore its heart-rending conclusion

- Nick Hilton

Jack Rooke has just cycled furiously, in a trenchcoat, to avoid being late for an interview - this interview - to discuss the acclaimed final season of his Channel 4 sitcom, Big Boys. Who would have begrudged him being a little late? After all, this is one of the busiest and happiest weeks of his life. Isn’t it?

“The answer is no,” he tells me, cradling an Americano while his PR handler scrolls idly on his phone, just out of earshot. “I’ve often felt, this week, a little bit like slamming my head against a wall. A lot of this week has been like: ‘I couldn’t have worked harder for a show that I’m not sure anybody knows has even come out’.”

This disarming candour will be less surprising to those familiar with Big Boys (spoiler alert: this article contains details of the final episode of Big Boys season three). After all, the show has always peered, with infectious affection, into the unexpected recesses of life. Set at the fictional Brent University, it follows a haphazard group of friends through the tribulations of student life. At the heart is Dylan Llewellyn’s Jack, a surrogate for Rooke, coming to terms with his sexuality, and his roommate Danny (Jon Pointing), a seemingly confident “lad” who is struggling with repressed mental health issues.

It was an odd-couple dynamic for the 21st century. What began life as a pilot for the BBC – and was developed by E4 as a “really bad Inbetweeners copycat with poonani jokes” – ended up as one of the most celebrated and affecting shows on TV.

But for Rooke, who has graduated from precocious newcomer to coveted showrunner, the fawning 5-star reviews (including in these august pages) mean far less than the sense that people, out there in the real world, are actually watching.