Summary16-year-old Bethan (Gabrielle Creevy) hides her troubled home life from her friends and teachers in this Welsh dark coming-of-age comedy created by Kayleigh Llewellyn.
Summary16-year-old Bethan (Gabrielle Creevy) hides her troubled home life from her friends and teachers in this Welsh dark coming-of-age comedy created by Kayleigh Llewellyn.
The series run five half-hour episodes, though features Welsh accents so thick that subtitles will be a must. But this brief, deeply affecting story defies expectations at every turn.
“In My Skin” has enough mordant humor to cut through all the intensity. There are moments when it resembles the lighter “Sex Education,” in between all volatility and the struggles. I was immediately ready for more episodes.
In My Skin provides some extra substance to the typical coming-of-age story, couched in mental illness and the desire of most teens to just fit in, even if they have to go to extreme measures to accomplish that goal.
The performance that Gabrielle Creevy gives as Bethan also goes a very long way toward making this series so relatable. ... Although the episodes are only a half-hour long, they are dense. A lot happens in each one, but under the supervision of director Lucy Forbes, whose credits include multiple episodes of The End of the F***ing World, they never feel overpacked.
Even when laying bare the bleak realities of teenage life in the wreckage of Britain’s forgotten places, In My Skin is filled with tenderness. ... Also preventing the series from turning into some kind of burdensome flogging ritual is the humour. Llewellyn’s dialogue is caustic and sharp, with all the warm familiarity of the Wetherspoons background hum.
In My Skin is a half-hour drama, and quite a good one. It takes Bethan’s pain and Katrina’s illness seriously, while also allowing both of them occasional moments of joy that feel earned. The brief first season ends in a place that has me very interested to see what happens next. Honestly.
Bethan’s occasional voiceover narration is an inconsistent element of the series, but her self-aware commentary is a welcome counterpoint to her infuriatingly self-sabotaging behavior. While having Bethan explain her inner thoughts can easily become a narrative crutch, In My Skin could have benefited more from Bethan’s reflective observations, which give us a deeper understanding of her often impulsive decisions.