Given last year’s flurry of ASBOs, chav celebs and David Cameron’s desire to ”hug a hoodie”, it seems odd that there aren’t a more shows investigating today’s yoof culture, but perhaps everyone thought that Geoff Norcott had it all sewn up. After all, he used to be a secondary school teenager. However, despite having the opportunity to have almost unlimited source material, it seems that Norcott hasn’t gone as far as he could.
While Professional Teenager is definitely entertaining, Norcott suffers from heavily relying on popular slang, Take-a-Break style analysis and, albeit wonderful, celebrity impressions. There is no doubt that you will be left with a sense of wellbeing and mild oblique muscle strain when you leave his show, but you will also feel a pang of regret that he didn’t push through to some astute conclusions.
This is maybe asking too much of a fifty minute show but, in a world where Warhol’s fifteen minutes of fame is considered a career, we probably deserve clear cut answers in this sort of period.
However, despite these flaws it is hard to do Norcott down too far, as he is completely endearing and bloody funny.
3/5
Richard Biggs
