Jack Rooke says he does not want to revisit the Big Boys story again once season three is out.
The Bafta award-winning writer based the Channel 4 series on his university experience in the 2010s while he explored his sexuality for the first time and learned to live with the grief from his father’s death.
Speaking to Sky News, he says although the drama comedy received a great reaction from fans and critics, he does not imagine ever returning to it for a reboot or spin-off.
“I know everyone always wants to leave the door open. I think there’s something so brilliant, a special moment here to just celebrate something being exactly what it is,” he says.
“It’s a succinct story that has a beginning and an end in the final episode of Big Boys, the last two episodes I wrote kind of almost run one into another. It’s like a two-part ending.”
He adds: “I just think there’s something about leaving them. Every single character by the end of their series, their story is tied up, and I’m proud of that as a writer because it’s quite difficult to try and give everyone an ending. But I think we’ve done that.”
That decision does not mean he wants to leave his cast behind, in fact, he says he already has a goal in mind.
“I’m really up for writing something completely different that has exactly the same cast. I would like to write like a completely different story. Completely fictional, completely oddball, completely weird, but have the whole gang in there again playing completely different parts,” he says.
“One day I’d like to write Dylan [Llewellyn] as a real nasty villain. No more sweethearts from the ‘wee English fella’ [from Derry Girls]. I want him to play like someone quite bloodthirsty.”
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Big Boys writer and creator Jack Rooke
Season one and two of Big Boys followed Jack, played by Derry Girls star Llewellyn, a shy 19-year-old student moving a short distance away from his mother for the first time to start his new life at Brent University.
Sharing accommodation with Danny, Sweetpea actor Jon Pointing, the pair quickly form a close bond and begin to navigate through their lives together.
Llewellyn says he will look back proudly at what the cast and crew achieved with the series, showing young people finding their footing and pride in themselves.
“I think that the dynamic between Jack and Danny is something you don’t see very often – a gay guy and a straight guy having that friendship, having that bond,” he says. “You don’t see it enough on TV, I don’t think. And yet you have it every day, you have it like in real life so why isn’t it on TV, you know?”
Dylan Llewellyn and Jon Pointing
For those who may not have watched a full episode yet, they have more than likely stumbled upon one of its most poignant scenes.
The moment the character Jack made the decision to tell his mother he’s gay featured on Celebrity Gogglebox and quickly went viral on social media.
Rooke says the appearance on Gogglebox was huge for the show, but it was also special to have a moment about his mother and late father resonate with people.
“People call it a coming out scene but to me, every line in that scene was about grief. It was about loss. It was about when you can’t tell someone who is no longer with you something so huge about yourself, but you can still tell the people who are there and who are going to love and support you, whatever,” he says.
“So, I think that scene to me is always going to be really close to my heart. And the three of them performed their socks off in that moment.”
The 31-year-old says he is slightly apprehensive about how he has decided to finish the acclaimed show.
“There is a scene in episode six of series three, and even just the last two minutes of that episode, the last two minutes of Big Boys, to me, I feel like that is the show. It’s about ‘chosen family’ and people who pick you up when you are at your lowest and I think that’s the sort of legacy of the show,” he says.
“It’s always about the people we choose, and I know that the concept of chosen family isn’t a new thing, but I don’t think you can ever be reminded enough how important that is, especially right now in the current climate we’re in. It is about saying ‘we’ first.”
He adds: “It’s a risk some people might not like the ending of this show [sic]. I think we’ve taken a bit of a riskier end to this but that feels truer and more authentic and will hopefully resonate with people.”
Big Boys season three airs on Channel 4 at 10pm on Sunday 9 February.
