Actor

Female

2 series in the catalog

This is a list of characters from the British sitcom The Inbetweeners, which ran for three series from 2008 to 2010 on E4. A 2011 film was also released, followed by a sequel in 2014.

Will McKenzie

William McKenzie is the central character and narrator of the show. In the pilot episode, Will begins his first day in his new school, Rudge Park Comprehensive, dressed in a suit and carrying a briefcase, leading to him being nicknamed "Briefcase Wanker" amongst other vulgar variations. For his portrayal as Will, Bird has won the 2008 British Comedy Award for Best Male Newcomer and the 2009 British Comedy Award for Best Actor. He was also nominated for Best Comedy Performance at the 2008 Royal Television Society Awards, and Best Male Performance in a Comedy Programme at the 2009 BAFTA Awards.

Will had previously been educated at a private school and is shown to be extremely out of place in the rougher comprehensive school environment. Although he is the most intelligent of the group, he becomes easily jealous and habitually launches into foul-mouthed rants when he becomes annoyed, often getting himself and his friends into trouble or awkward situations. Will often has trouble engaging with girls, generally panicking and overthinking in situations where he could end up having sex; as a running joke, Neil often ends up hooking up with the girl Will desired instead. He is shown to be very emotionally dependent on his mother, Polly, despite her continually being a source of embarrassment for him in front of others. Much to Will's agitation, his friends (particularly Jay and Neil) and others are attracted to her, and do not hesitate to make open remarks about it.

Will often finds himself the target of bullying in school, partly through Mark Donovan (with such acts as taping him to a chair and placing a bin on his head) but mainly through embarrassment and belittlement from his sardonic Head of Sixth Form, Mr Gilbert. Despite Will's conscientious attitude towards him, Gilbert often goes out of his way to make Will's time at school miserable.

After his many mishaps in the series, romantic or otherwise, in the first film Will joins his friends on a lads' holiday to Malia, Crete where he meets and forms a genuine relationship with Alison.

Jay Cartwright

Jay Cartwright, the youngest of the four protagonists, is crass, immature, untrustworthy and obsessed with sex, with almost all his comments concerning the subject. He frequently lies and exaggerates (often to an outrageous extent) about his supposed experiences – sexual and otherwise – often making crude comments about women and offering highly incorrect advice to his friends to lift his ego and sabotage their chances; he also frequently uses words such as "clunge" and "snatch" to describe women's genitalia. In reality, he is the least sexually experienced of the group, lacks confidence and frequently relies on pornography to attain gratification, as he finds it difficult to converse with girls. When he does enter a relationship with Chloe in "Exam Time", owing to his insecurities and lack of experience, he follows extremely poor advice from his father by bombarding her with texts and calls, the pressure of which leads her to end the relationship. His father also often openly contradicts Jay's claims and humiliates him in front of his friends (and even their parents) stating that Jay has zero success with women and is in fact a "loser". This treatment drives Jay to appear more experienced and impressive than he actually is.

In "Xmas Party", Jay opens up to John Webster, admitting that many of his stories are exaggerated because he is afraid of being ignored by his peers. However, he quickly throws this side of him away when Samantha, a girl possessing many similar characteristics to Jay, shows interest in him. He seldom performs any acts of kindness and routinely insults even his closest friends, with his comments reaching a more severe level than the insults the rest of the group frequently exchange. In a deleted scene, he even insults Will in German. It is implied in the last episode that Jay may have been sexually abused by his former neighbour; Neil mentions a "game" that Jay and his "weird neighbour" used to play in the garden shed, which Jay denies vehemently.

Jay's only friend who truly likes him is Neil, mostly because he is naïve enough to believe Jay's stories. Another recurring theme of Jay's character is that he often steals things, such as hair removal cream ("Duke of Edinburgh Awards") and a flyer for a house party ("Will's Birthday") from a girl named Sadie Cunningham during registration. He also often gets Simon into trouble for things that he had said or done; for example, Simon is throttled by a man after Jay shouts "bus wankers!" through the car window. By the start of the third series, Jay has supposedly passed his driving test, driving his mum's car. His driving skills are awful, making Will "feel like Princess Diana" and he later reveals that he has in fact not yet passed his test; he is able to drive only on the pretext that Neil is giving him a "lesson".

Jay's idea of a lads' holiday to Malia, Crete, sets up the events of the first film, promising a two-week long "mental holiday full of sun, sea, sex, sand, booze, sex, minge, fanny and tits, and booze, and sex". However, he still experiences little success with women, until he meets Jane (whom he first disregards for being "fat") who can see through his facade. Jay eventually learns to overcome his shallowness and begins a relationship with Jane. He also begins to show a softer side towards his friends in the film, such as buying Simon tickets for the boat party (albeit he rips them up after they fight), displaying sadness that Simon will soon leave for university, and offering a very intoxicated Will his bed for the night in lieu of an ants' nest.

Neil Sutherland

Neil Lindsay Sutherland is the dull-witted and gentle giant of the group. Owing to his gullibility, he is usually the only person who believes Jay's stories and often fails to understand the sarcasm in Will's one-liners. His friends tease him about his father Kevin allegedly being a closeted homosexual; both Neil and his father strongly deny this. He has, alongside Simon, passed his driving test and owns a modified Vauxhall Nova GSi, but cannot drive it as it does not have an engine. He takes part in the school's version of Blind Date and wins an unwanted date with Susie, one of the school's "freaks". He works at Thorpe Park and also works on-off over the series at Asda. He is a very good dancer, his speciality being "The Robot", and has a crush on his biology teacher, Miss Timms, with his drunken advances toward her in "Xmas Party" ending in humiliation. Despite being naïve, he is well-meaning and laid-back compared to the rest of the group.

Neil is the most sexually experienced of the group owing to his unquestioning and unassuming nature; a recurring theme is that Neil ends up hooking up with women originally fancied by Will. For instance, in "Caravan Club", Will rebuffs the advances of a promiscuous punk girl owing to a lack of romantic sentiment; Neil, however, demonstrates no such concerns, experiencing the same "pushy" approach but accepting it readily, spending a night in Simon's car with her mutually masturbating. He also claims to have snogged and fingered Charlotte Hinchcliffe after Will's brief fling with her, although he informs Will of only the snog to protect his friend's feelings (he tells the other two silently via hand gestures behind Will's back). He also manages to get two blowjobs from Will's dumped date Kerry at his 18th birthday party. Neil also claims to have sexual encounters with unseen female characters on the show, including much older colleague Karen at Asda. In "The Camping Trip", Neil wrongly assumes that he has impregnated her (and dreads having to attend the birth and watch her squeeze the baby "out of her arse"), but receives a…