Big Boys spoilers follow.
Big Boys creator Jack Rooke has opened up about the show's hilarious sex scene featuring a Tesco meal deal in the new series.
The excellent new Channel 4 comedy follows an on-screen version of Rooke (Dylan Lewellyn) as he deals with his sexuality and recent death of his father while forming a close friendship with straight friend Danny (Jon Ponting) at university.
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One particular scene in episode five sees Jack unsuccessfully attempt to lose his virginity with Yemi (Olisa Odele), imagining beforehand the joy of how it will play out through the experience of a Tesco meal deal floating in the air mid-sex.
Related: Big Boys creator Jack Rooke on straight best friends and the perils of curly hair
Opening up exclusively to Digital Spy about conceiving the scene, Rooke admitted that his original plan didn't work out.
"I really wanted Big Boys to feel very British in its cultural reference points. But I wanted it to feel British in a way that wasn't exclusionary. I wanted it to feel like a Britain that's a working-class Britain where everyone's welcome," he explained.
"I feel like that scene is a really cool scene, because it's slightly based on truth, but it also evokes a sort of hyper-realised version of it.
Related: Big Boys' Dylan Llewellyn on using an intimacy co-ordinator and life after Derry Girls
"Originally, that scene was set to the song 'Venus' by Lady Gaga, from the Artpop album, but unfortunately, we couldn't get the song. I'd spent maybe three days in grief, because I'd written that ep years before, and I'd always heard it to 'Venus'."
However, things came together with a Hot Chip song, with Rooke recalling: "Then we found this Hot Chip song which I've always loved, and we tried it over it, which was then going, 'Do it, do it, do it…'
Related: Big Boys shows the importance of messy, disabled characters
"And I was like, 'Oh my God, this feels like what your brain was like when you're about to bottom for the first time.' You're like, 'You can do it, do it, do it…' That sort of anxiety and nervousness."
He added: "Once we had the song, I could write the absurdity of what was going on. Olisa [Odele], in particular, who plays Yemi, loved it, because he was like, 'It's so fun to play a top and have this brief hallucination moment.' [laughs] It's one of my favourite scenes."
Big Boys airs Thursdays on Channel 4. The whole series is available to watch now on 4OD.
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Sam is a freelance reporter and sub-editor who has a particular interest in movies, TV and music. After completing a journalism Masters at City University, London, Sam joined Digital Spy as a reporter, and has also freelanced for publications such as NME and Screen International. Sam, who also has a degree in Film, can wax lyrical about everything from Lord of the Rings to Love Is Blind, and is equally in his element crossing every 't' and dotting every 'i' as a sub-editor.
After teaching in England and South Korea, David turned to writing in Germany, where he covered everything from superhero movies to the Berlin Film Festival.
In 2019, David moved to London to join Digital Spy, where he could indulge his love of comics, horror and LGBTQ+ storytelling as Deputy TV Editor, and later, as Acting TV Editor.
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