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16th Oct 2018

Inbetweeners’ James Buckley thinks people would be ‘too offended’ by the show in 2018

James Dawson

‘Nowadays, it feels very black and white with comedy’

Inbetweeners actor James Buckley has outed himself as another boring bloke in comedy, saying that “it seems to be cool at the moment to be offended” and that a fear of causing offence is “killing comedy” in a recent interview.

Speaking about The Inbetweeners, the 31-year-old who played Jay, claimed that if it was made today it would be heavily criticised.

“I think that when The Inbetweeners was around, everyone understood the context – that they were kids”, he told Digital Spy. “There used to be a sympathy, where you could almost forgive them because you can’t really have a go at someone for being stupid – that’s not really their fault.

“Nowadays, it feels very black and white with comedy. There’s no in-between, it’s just, ‘This person said this on television – isn’t that terrible?’ and it’s killing comedy, because you’re not allowed to joke about anything, it seems. There seems to be a joke police, nowadays.”

You may remember that the show ran between 2008-10 and was followed up by two films in 2011 and 2014 – in which time there has apparently been a seismic shift in public opinion and taste.

“It seems to be cool at the moment to be offended by stuff, and that’s a shame. It seems to be in vogue at the moment, and I’m hoping it will pass because I do think that possibly people would maybe be more offended by The Inbetweeners if it was to be made today”, he added.

“Which is really weird, because it’s only 10 years. It’s only four years since we finished.”

It has recently been rumoured that the show could be set for a revival after Buckley posted an image of the cast reuniting on Twitter, although with PC having gone mad I guess that it would have to return in a toned down format.