Series »In My Skin« – one for everyone

As soon as the 16-year-old Bethan (Gabrielle Creevy) tells about her parents at school, she lies until the beams bend. The tough main character of the BBC series “In My Skin” comes from a chaotic parents’ house. Her mother Katrina (Jo Hartley) suffers from a bipolar disorder, sometimes behaves extremely aggressive and is temporarily housed in a closed department of psychiatry. Her father Dilwyn (Rhodri Meilir) is a disgusting drunkard and brutal racket, who usually hangs out beer on the sofa and insults mother and daughter. But Bethan assures her classmate that her mother is a HR manager, taking her in ballet performances, and her father a somewhat too good civil servant, but very loving dad.

With her two friends Lydia (Poppy Lee Friar) and the gay travis (James Wilbraham), after school, she hangs around regularly after school in the suburb of the Welsh city of Cardiff, drinks a lot of schnapps and makes nonsense. Even the close friends don’t know anything about Bethan’s precarious situation at home. When she also crushes into the popular class beauty Poppy (Zadeiah Campbell-Davies) and a romance starts with her, the situation escalates at home. Bethan’s mother is released from the clinic, but the father does not take care of her and becomes violent.

Bethan does a lot of care work, not only in the family, and she can’t stop taking care of others.

The series “In My Skin” awarded with various prices was already broadcast on BBC Three in 2018 and 2021 and is now running for the first time in Germany as a “Web Only” series in the Arte Mediathek. The two seasons, each with five half -hour episodes, present an incredibly rapid narrative pace and impress with their pointed dialogues.

As terrible as this sometimes rough and directly staged social drama is around 16-year-old Bethan, who almost only has to shoulder the family exceptional situation and only gets support from her grandmother Margie (di Botcher), “In My Skin” tells this story anyway With an incredible amount of humor and situation comedy. And that without being sarcastic, hurtful or somehow excluding. Unfortunately, this is an exception in today’s cultural operations.

Bethan does a lot of care work, not only in the family, and she can’t stop taking care of others. This goes so far that at some point she completely loses sight of her own needs. This story is extremely empowering and rousing. Even her queer romance with Poppy is not exactly easy, with Bethan fighting through and not giving up again and again.

This rapid story is continued in season two at the same pace, among other things about the transition to the university, a possible separation of the parents and a new queer love story of Bethan.

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“In My Skin” tells a lot about everyday British school in the small town province with plenty of puberty sexism, a lot of homophobia and a lot of idiotic boys. From the nerd to the notorious teacher, everything is included. However, there are always solidarity among the students and strict teachers, who usually all strive for the kids from the employees and working class. Bethan doesn’t seem to fear anything as much as understanding teachers who interfere in their lives and make it difficult to invent great, sounding family stories. Nobody should know how she really is.

This extraordinary jewel from a series is extremely exciting to the last episode. The social-realistic Young adult narration deals with class barriers, queer desire, care work, generation conflicts, the education system and longing for a better life. But Bethan just can’t get out of the title -giving skin. For them, however, this is no reason to give up.

Available in the Arte media library.