Sharon Horgan’s new HBO comedy Youth follows a 50-year-old literary agent confronting an empty nest, an uncertain love life and the possibility that growing up does not end in adulthood.
Horgan plays Alex, a divorcee whose son Ruari leaves for college, prompting her to reconsider what she wants from the next stage of her life. The series also examines the struggles of her son and Patrick, a former boyfriend played by Rupert Friend, who has reached his forties without settling down.
“Youth” was shortened from a quotation by Victor Hugo: “50 is the youth of old age”. Horgan said the longer version was too cumbersome for a television title.
The comedy was filmed partly in Clerkenwell, where an 18th-century courthouse was used as the office of Alex’s publishing company. Alex works alongside her best friend and boss, Sam, played by Sharlene Whyte.
Horgan said the story drew on her own circumstances. Her youngest daughter was sitting her A-levels when the interview took place and was preparing to leave for university, leaving Horgan facing a similar transition to her character.
“I mean, I’m still desperately sad that he goes,” she said of Alex’s son, “but for me it’s just this sudden feeling of f—ing freedom.”
Alex’s new independence is complicated when Ruari is forced to return home within weeks. She is also dealing with the fear that time is running out to find a partner, after developing arthritis in her jaw and wondering whether it marks the beginning of a wider decline.
“So the show is me navigating that,” Horgan said, “trying to find the final part of my story … to find happiness and not die alone. But life decides something else.”
Sharon Horgan’s Youth explores growing up at every age
Although the series deals with divorce, ageing and family pressures, Horgan said she wanted the material to remain funny as well as painful.
“I feel like I don’t know how to write something that isn’t hopefully going to f— you up a bit,” she said. “I mean, my dream is that the first episode takes you somewhere really funny, and then really slaps you around the head at the end.”
Friend described Patrick as an “institutionally single man-child” who has avoided families and commitment, not through deliberate cruelty but because he has never fully grown up.
Horgan said she chose Friend because of his comic ability and his instinct for identifying material that did not feel genuine. Friend, who is best known for roles including Homeland, said Patrick was not a conventional cad or action hero, but someone who could barely boil an egg.
Friend said the series repeatedly undercuts the conventions of a romantic comedy. “You might find the person of your dreams but as you get older, there’s always a big conversation to have,” he said.
Horgan said Youth was not intended to be a story built around familiar middle-aged female stereotypes or solely about the menopause. Instead, she wanted to examine what she had learned at this point in her life and show, through comedy, how difficult that period can be.
“It’s about this particular time in a woman’s life, but also it’s the sandwich generation thing,” Horgan said, referring to adults supporting children while also dealing with ageing parents.
Youth is streaming on HBO Max.
