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The trailer for Channel 4’s Big Boys’ second season has been released. 

The hit comedy, which first aired last year, is loosely-based on comedian Jack Rooke’s 2020 memoir Cheer The F**k Up, which follows his journey through grief after his father Laurie’s death and best friend Olly’s suicide. 

The first season of the show follows Jack, played by Dylan Llewellyn, and Danny, played by Jon Pointing, as they form a firm friendship at Brent University following the death of the former’s father from cancer.

Big Boys explores Jack’s battle with his sexuality, his close relationship with his mother Peggy, played by Camille Coduri, mental health and his burgeoning friendships after departing home life to go to university. 

The teaser for the show, which returns next month, shows Jack’s pal Corinne, played by Izuka Hoyle, asking: ‘Why were you trying to have sex at your dead dad’s 60th?’ before he protests dramatically while Danny laughs and expresses his respect. 

The trailer for Channel 4’s Big Boys’ second season has been released with Jack, played by Dylan Llewellyn, and Danny played by Jon Pointing (right and left) 

Jack’s cousin Shannon, played by Harriet Webb, reveals she would not call Cheryl Tweedy by her new surname, Fernandez-Versini, when she wed restauranteur Jean-Bernard Fernandez-Versini in 2014

Viewers also see Jack’s cousin Shannon, played by Harriet Webb, heavily pregnant and reading a magazine while words over the top confirm the year is 2014. 

She utters: ‘I will not be calling her Cheryl Fernandez-Versini, I can’t be dealing with that’, in the wake of Cheryl Tweedy’s marriage to Jean-Bernard Fernandez-Versini in 2014, which ended just two years later. 

Jack is then left drooling over his professor Tim, played by Robert Gilbert, and admitting to Danny that he is attracted to straight men. 

Danny points out: ‘That is going to be an issue’. 

After watching Danny’s mental health deteriorate in the first series as his grandmother – with whom he lived – faced worsening dementia, the trailer sees him visit his father amid struggles in his family life. 

Speaking to Channel 4 last year, writer and funnyman Jack said: ‘In my mind it’s a silly, sweet comedy about two boys from very different ends of the “spectrum of masculinity” who become best mates at uni…

‘They quickly realise they actually do have a lot of stuff in common; they want to find themselves, have fun and properly figure out who they are, which I think you get to explore when you’re a fresher and you’re away from home and people who knew you when you were a snotty nosed little kid…

‘It’s about that period of reinvention I suppose. And because in the series there is this narrative device of me narrating throughout, you’re very aware you’re watching a TV show set in the past but voiced from the future…

Speaking to Channel 4 last year, writer and funnyman Jack said: ‘In my mind it’s a silly, sweet comedy about two boys from very different ends of the “spectrum of masculinity” who become best mates at uni’ (Jack pictured last week) 

‘It’s essentially showing viewers the dynamics of a friendship through a series of little memories. I even say out loud at the start that Dylan [Llewellyn] is playing me, because “if you can’t cast yourself as better looking then what’s the point?!?!” Am I right?! 

Speaking about how close the show is to his own story, Jack went on: ‘I would say it’s become more fictionalised as it’s developed…

‘And I think that’s for two reasons. Firstly, because myself as a comedian and as somebody who’s made a lot of autobiographical work, I am so sick to death of talking about myself and there is nothing more narcissistic than writing a sitcom about your own life!…

‘You have to immediately reconcile with the fact that you’re asking people to watch you growing up. 

‘I like to think that I’ve made enough differences in the characters: when we were on set, the actors really got to know me because I’m exec-ing it so I was there every day, workshopping stuff and telling them random bits of backstory about their characters…

Speaking about how close the show is to his own story, Jack went on: ‘I would say it’s become more fictionalised as it’s developed’

‘The general consensus is that me as Narrator Jack is nothing like the character Dylan plays in the show. Dylan’s Jack is very shy and anxious and doesn’t really know what’s ahead for him. And everyone was like, ‘You’re way more like… Yemi or Danny.’ So I guess they’re all a bit based on me.

‘And there are definitely a few lines that are taken from real stuff that’s been said to me. Especially Danny [Jon Pointing], who is based on three or four of my friends rolled into one…

‘But I have tried to give myself the challenge of creating something that’s loosely based on the truth but is ultimately a world and creation of its own. It’s too narcissistic otherwise; it’s too much’.

Jack’s best friend Olly (top left) died by suicide while his father Laurie (bottom right) battled cancer, both subjects he follows in his part self-help book part memoir Cheer The F*** Up

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