If there is a cliché you have in mind about a series set against a high school backdrop, chances are you will encounter it on Sex Education , Netflix’s latest British import.
There’s the protagonist, Otis (Asa Butterfield), the quintessential geek, who prefers to remain invisible and nurses a secret crush on a girl who is out of his league. There is the best friend, Eric (Ncuti Gatwa), equally invisible, but whose outlook to life remains optimistic. Then there is the secret crush, Maeve (Emma Mackey), the cool chick who pretends she is above validation but secretly yearns for affection. The jock Adam (Connor Swindells), the over-achieving stud Jackson (Kedar Williams-Stirling), the quirky principal, the concerned teacher — all these characters inhabit the world of Sex Education , as you would expect. And while creator Laurie Nunn balances the expectations of a campus drama with a plot that almost singularly rotates around sex, she comes up with something startlingly charming, fuzzy, and rip-roaringly fun.
In an ever-so-slight subversion of the genre, it is the parents that are the complicated lot — the kids are purely trying to adjust to a world tangled by their parents. Adam lives with the constant pressure of matching up to the standards set by his father — also the headmaster. Eric is openly gay; his African-American father is as accepting of his son’s sexual orientation as he is fearful for it. Johnson’s lesbian parents push him to achieve beyond his limits; a meltdown seems to be around the corner. Maeve’s parents’ contribution to her life is their absence: one ran away when she was a kid, the other is in rehab.
Nunn moulds each of these characters with astonishing affection. None more than Otis, who faces the biggest parental struggle of them all — his mother, Jean (Gillian Anderson) is a sex therapist. His house is a Mecca of phallic symbols, and he often overhears Jean counselling clients in her home office. The knowledge of all these interactions has led to Otis acquiring an unavoidable gift: he can expertly solve the sexual conundrums of his fellow students.
Maeve comes up with the perfect business idea — she turns Otis into the on-campus sex counsellor. The irony here is that his own sexual escapades are a disaster. While his clients are dealing with various degrees of problems in bed, Otis can hardly masturbate. To top it, Jean’s vast experience as a therapist cannot stop her from trying to take control of her son’s sexual awakening, which often sets them on a collision course.
It is a stellar plot, combining themes as diverse as mental health, young romance and sexual experimentation in one common narrative, and Nunn conjures up at least half-a-dozen brilliant moments every episode. There seems to be a remarkable lack of effort in creating comedy, and yet the laughs flow easily. And then there are moments where you struggle to hold back tears — it is how invested Nunn makes you in her characters.
Few would imagine Anderson as a controlling mother hell-bent on having awkward conversations about sex with her teenage son, and that is exactly what turns her presence into such a joy. Butterfield plays his character with as much intelligence as Otis possesses. But the standout performance comes from Gatwa, an actor so full of zest and raw emotion, you want to give Eric a hug every time he appears on screen.
I do not remember the last time I cherished every episode of a show with as much enthusiasm, at the same time dreading the moment the season would end. There is a big Sex Education -sized hole in my life at the moment, and I suspect it will last until the next season arrives.
The first season of Sex Education is now streaming on Netflix
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