EXCLUSIVE: Hit British comedy The Inbetweeners has re-entered the zeitgeist lately with the unveiling of a new Netflix movie. Stars Joe Thomas and James Buckley are taking advantage with a Channel 4 documentary dealing with the show’s favorite topic, adulting.

Thomas and Buckley, who can both be seen in the new movie, are fronting Joe and James: Boys to Men [working title], as they explore how adulting works and how exactly you make the most of midlife without a crisis.

While the two have different personalities and approaches to life, just like in the series, the travelogue-style road trip will see the pair unconventional adventures as they search for answers to their questions both at home and abroad.

When they first made The Inbetweeners in 2008, the pair were in their early twenties, playing late-teens trying to awkwadly navigate their way around school life. Nearly 20 years have passed and Thomas and Buckley have both starred in a number of non-Inbetweeners projects.

“Whether you rewatch an ep of The Inbetweeners or catch them on their hilarious podcast, the chemistry between Joe and James is undeniable,” said Channel 4 commissioning editor Vivienne Molokwu. “Their genuine friendship and different perspectives on life make them both engaging and entertaining so I can’t wait to see them explore the very modern question of what to do when you’re too old to be young but too young to be old.”

The show is being produced by Idle Industries in conjunction with Inbetweeners maker Fudge Park. Inbetweeners co-creator Damon Beesley and Will Macdonald, the former Monkey boss who founded BBC Studios-backed Idle Industries last year, are producing.

The Inbetweeners spawned three hit series plus two movies with a third Netflix one on the way. That one is seeing all stars reprise their roles and came after months of speculation.

BBC and BritBox comedy-drama Ludwig has gone from strength to strength as it becomes the UK’s most-watched scripted launch of the year so far.

The first ep of Season 2, which wrapped last week, has now been watched by an audience of 9.1 million, according to Barb data from overnights.tv. This places it ahead of the likes of Prime Video’s The Night Manager with 8.7 million and fellow BBC comedy-drama Small Prophets (7.6 million).

The BBC was celebrating the milestone this morning and said this places Ludwig ahead of all rival scripted shows across both broadcasters and streamers. On the unscripted side, it still cannot match The Traitors from earlier this year, also for the BBC, which was watched by a consolidated audience of 13.3 million.

Ludwig stars David Mitchell as John Taylor, a reclusive puzzle maker who pretends to be his brother when he goes missing and infiltrates the local police station to investigate, before becoming embroiled in other cases. Mark Brotherhood is creator, Big Talk produces and the show, which has already been recommissioned for a third season plus Christmas special starring David Suchet, also stars Anna Maxwell Martin and Izuka Hoyle.

Big Talk boss Kenton Allen said: “Ludwig is a gloriously eccentric detective at the heart of a show that has never played by the usual rules, so to see more than nine million people embrace him is genuinely thrilling. Mark Brotherhood has created that rare thing: a clever, funny, warm-hearted show that audiences seem to have made part of their lives.”

Ludwig Season 2 ended last Thursday to 1.6 million overnight viewers but catch-up on BBC iPlayer has been where it has amassed serious numbers. The first season broke out at a time when audiences were looking for cozy viewing and was the BBC’s top-rated scripted show of 2024.