Sorry, no one wants to see The Inbetweeners as adults

The original only worked because it perfectly captured the experience of being a British teenager in the Noughties, writes Helen Coffey, who has had her fill of reboots

- Helen Coffey

“Ooh, friend!” “Frieeeend!” “Football friend!”

There was a certain period in the late 2000s when, if you happened to be a teenager in Great Britain, it felt like you couldn’t go 24 hours without hearing these words. Like the ubiquitous “Whassup?” Budweiser advert before it and the strangely permeating “Skibidi” that came long after (so popular it has now entered the Cambridge English Dictionary), this specific set of syllables, delivered in a mocking, high-pitched voice, seemed to somehow transcend its humble origins and become emblematic of an entire era.

If you’re unfamiliar, this line of dialogue originates from an episode of The Inbetweeners, the hit E4 comedy show that aired between 2008 and 2010 and has just been confirmed to return for a reboot. The coming-of-age series followed four teenage boys as they attended a mixed state secondary school in England in the Noughties, awkwardly navigating the complex social hierarchies of teenagedom (and trying to convince girls to wank them off in the process). The show ran for three series and proved wildly popular, spawning two subsequent films, released in 2011 and 2014 respectively.

Like many a British sitcom before it, from Fawlty Towers to Peep Show,