Ladhood

Lads! Lads! Lads!


Lad culture reached its zenith – or nadir, depending on your position – in the 90’s. Loaded magazine was flying off the sheves, Baddiel and Skinner were selling out arenas and Chris Evans was too pissed for work. The banter bus was a triple decker and Oasis were on FM. It was a time of brashness and bravado; if you were at all sensitive then you may as well make a bunker of a bedroom, hide out until the decade was over.


Was I a lad during this time? A little. I bought the magazines, phwoared at the tits, elevated/diminished women into sex gods. This testerone was indoors only, an internal randy chimp, laddishness of the mind. Conversely, in public I was sensitive and courteous, didn’t say boo to a goose – or ‘get them out’ to a woman. I knew how I should behave, and more often than not did. The pressure to be macho was there though. The erudition of Cocker drowned out by Damon and Liam. It was an effort to stay clear of lad culture. 

Lads!

Liam Williams explores the theme of masculinity through his BBC3 comedy Ladhood. The origins of the show lie in the Radio 4 series of the same name. There, the first series delved into Liam’s adolescence; the second dissected his university years. It was the best thing I’d heard on the radio in years. The dour eloquence, incisive humour and wicked soundtrack was quite something. However, the new incarnation isn’t a straight to TV transfer. In this version, Williams interposes his adult self into the teenage remembrance.


The first episode begins with Williams in a pub. A guy is chatting to his girlfriend at the bar. Liam isn’t best pleased. His degree falls to the floor, ineloquence spills out. Embarrassingly, he threatens the threat. All of this cock in hand posturing gets Williams thinking, 'where did this machismo come from?' To understand the man at 30, he observes the boy at 15. We’re now back in time with a young Liam and his mates Craggy, Ralph and Addy. They’re chatting about two girls they think are really fit. Today’s Liam watches on, readied to celebrate his mature younger self; unfortunately, this does not materialise. Liam’s disappointed look to camera as he relives his past is Capra's It’s A Wonderful Life- only inverted. In the last few minutes Liam leaves adolescence, returning to adulthood; back to the bar, better equipped to correct his past mistakes, be a better man. At the point where it looks like Liam has learnt the lessons, he does something that upends the epiphany. This pattern of seeming transformation and subsequent failure is a motif that runs across the series. Essentially, Williams is highlighting what he remarked upon in a Guardian interview: that he remains coated in the ‘residue of laddishness, for better or worse. Largely worse.’ A 00’s teenager can read feminist commentators online but will still click on LADbible pop-ups. 

For fans of the radio show, you might want to know how else it differs. Well, understandably some of the poetic language is lost to the visual medium. What has been added by director Jonathan Schey is a stark look at suburbia. In the first episode where Liam’s friend Craggy has a fight; in the second where the boys get pissed in the woods, there’s a Shane Meadows feel to the direction. In these moments the diegetic sound drops out and a dissonant score kicks in, capturing the threat of adolescence, that Lord of the Flies existence where adult can't save you. Given this is Schey’s first major work, he does a fantastic job at realising Williams’ vision.


It isn’t all Generation Y introspection, there’s cracking jokes too. There’s a touch of inbetweeners in the teenage scenes where the lads weigh up their options for Friday night. Being underage rules out a lot of things. Addy has a suggestion though: ‘We could stay in and play Tekken. You know, or stay in and play Fifa. Or stay in and play Metal Gear.’ Ah, those Playstation days where your entertainment was determined by the number of games you had. Also, these are the type of boys that say to girls, ‘How you keeping?’; the kind of lads that taunt, ‘I’m going to take you to the toy shop?’ They are too bright for violence yet too stupid to avoid it. And, oh, the music remains great too with needle drops from Dizzee and Roots Manuva.


So in transferring to tele, I’ve had the chance to love Ladhood all over again. Lads! Lads! Lads!



Ladhood is available on iPlayer