Jamie Brittain

In Skins (2007), Bristol A-level students move between college and parties, with sex and drugs taking up plenty of their attention. Jamie Brittain and fellow creator Bryan Elsley do not make good behaviour a condition of our interest. We enjoyed their company more than we expected, because the abrasive dialogue makes even their aggravating behaviour funny. The sympathy survives their misbehaviour, and that matters in a programme so keen to shock. We recommend it to those who enjoy noisy teenage comedy-drama, with a warning that the talk is often better than the story.

Brittain favours collaborative writers’ rooms, so there is little sense in assigning every sharp line or predictable turn to him alone. But the shared approach has a weakness: sometimes these teenagers seem chosen from a stock list and sent towards difficulties we can see coming. The sex and drug use become tiring when the programme treats them as enough to hold our attention. At those points, the cast have to make us care about what happens, and the writing is fortunate to have them.

The later television credits suggest an interest in how people behave together that is not confined to adolescence. He contributed an episode to the romantic anthology Dates (2013), then served as writer, adviser and associate producer on the virtual-reality thriller Kiss Me First (2018). Writing episodes of Breeders (2020) brought him to a comedy-drama about being a parent, a change of subject from the students whose behaviour first gave us reason to watch his work.

The more substantial change came in 2023, when he became lead writer on an open-world title at Maverick Games. His preference for design-led collaboration makes the move less surprising than it first sounds. A writer accustomed to sharing decisions has a useful starting point there, though a larger space will not by itself make characters less familiar. Start with Skins, provided an aggravating group of teenagers sounds like company rather than an ordeal.