Will McKenzie

Will McKenzie is the protagonist and narrator from the E4 coming-of-age British comedy The Inbetweeners, played by Simon Bird, who made his first appearance during the pilot episode "First Day", broadcast on 1 May 2008. The character narrates a majority of the scenes in each of the three main series and is often cited as the lead character. Directors named the character in homage to the gameshow "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire". In episode 1 of series 1 of the quiz the first contestant to be introduced on fastest finger first by then host Chris Tarrant was a man called "William McKenzie". Will appears in every episode of the series, as well as appearing in the follow-up films The Inbetweeners Movie (2011) and The Inbetweeners 2 (2014).

Will McKenzie
The Inbetweeners character
Simon Bird as Will McKenzie
First appearance"First Day" (2008)
Last appearanceThe Inbetweeners 2 (2014)
Created byDamon Beesley
Iain Morris
Portrayed bySimon Bird[1]
Joey Pollari (US version)
In-universe information
OccupationStudent
RelativesPolly McKenzie (mother), Mr. McKenzie (father)

Appearances

Television series

Will moves from a private school to a state comprehensive school because his mother, Polly McKenzie (Belinda Stewart-Wilson), can no longer afford to pay the tuition fees. Upon moving to the new school, Simon Cooper (Joe Thomas), Jay Cartwright (James Buckley) and Neil Sutherland (Blake Harrison) reluctantly become Will's new friends after initially trying to avoid him. The group warm to him after several efforts to win their friendship – including successfully buying alcohol underage and (almost) having sex with the most attractive girl in the school. He is an unconventional hero – although he is generally the wittiest and most level-headed of the group, he is prone to making bad decisions, easily giving in to peer pressure, and making outrageous remarks. He is generally sophisticated, sensible and possesses intelligence that surpasses that of his immediate friends. Another dominant characteristic, is his tendency to deliver sarcastic, dry humorous remarks, which sometimes get him into trouble. Will also appears to follow certain ethical laws, though is not above occasionally committing illegal acts, such as buying alcohol underage, and inadvertently or accidentally making insults, such as against Neil's father Kevin Sutherland (Alex Macqueen) while drunk and people who are disabled, among others.

Simon Bird plays Will McKenzie

Will aspires to have a career in law or maybe the media, and was supposed to be attending a local newspaper office for work experience. However, a mix-up with applications sends Neil to the newspaper office (instead of "driving aeroplanes") and Will spends his placement at a garage, where he ultimately fails to fit in and gets bullied by the staff working there. At the end of the second series, when the boys face exams, Will began to crack under pressure and relies on energy drinks to keep him awake- believing that if he doesn't sleep he can spend more time revising. This plan unfortunately backfires, leading to him soiling himself during his final exam, and after completing it several hours late, he goes to the pub and downs three pints of lager, compensating for the fact that he has probably failed his Politics AS level. He is interested in Charlotte Hinchcliffe (Emily Atack), and the two of them have been known to spend time together, with Will accidentally ruining their relationship. He nearly lost his virginity to Charlotte after telling her in school a few days prior that he had had numerous lovers, although when they did attempt to have sex, Charlotte was let down by Will's unsuccessful attempt; in his own words "rubbing up against the perineum".

In Series 3, Will is convinced to go on a double date with Simon, Tara Brown (Hannah Tointon), and Tara's friend, Kerry (or "Big Kerry" according to Will). He is repulsed by her as she is taller than he is, and is rather ditzy and boring; however once he hears how she is known for fellating her last few boyfriends, he continues his relationship with her. They unexpectedly share a kiss when Kerry escorts him back home, which gives her the impression that they are now dating. At Neil's eighteenth birthday party, Will causes outrage by attempting to harshly break-up with Kerry, not knowing that her father had died a month previously, and that Tara had arranged their relationship to comfort her. Will later attempts to arrange a final camping holiday with the lads before they go their separate ways after leaving school. Will is the only character out of the four to never pass his driving test; this is in large part due to the fact his mother did not sign him up for driving lessons on his 17th birthday as she thought the minimum age was 18.

Will serves as the narrator in the show and is therefore the principal character.

Films

In The Inbetweeners Movie, the group go on holiday to Malia, Crete after leaving school, where Will meets Alison, a woman with a similar personality to him. Despite Alison initially acting distant towards Will's advances, owing to the fact that she already has a boyfriend, they become closer and she suggests they go skinny dipping one night. At the beach the following night, Alison strips naked in front of Will, imploring him to do the same before placing his hand on her breast, and they appear to be growing closer until she catches her boyfriend having sex with another woman and runs off crying. They ultimately reconcile at a boat party later that week, where Alison admits to Will that she really likes him. Will affirms that he likes her as well and they begin a relationship.

In the second film, Will reveals that he has "been dumped". He appears to be single in that film. He is shown to be an unpopular student at Bristol University, but has used his time alone to become a surprisingly accomplished guitar player. He attempts to seduce Katie Evans, an old friend from prep school, by singing "Killing Me Softly with His Song" with his guitar, but she passes out drunk whilst he is fingering her.

Reception

For his portrayal as Will, Bird has won the 2008 British Comedy Award for "Best Male Newcomer"[2] and the 2009 British Comedy Award for "Best Actor".[3] He was also nominated for "Best Comedy Performance" at the 2008 Royal Television Society Awards,[4] and "Best Male Performance" in a Comedy Programme at the 2009 BAFTA Awards.[2]

While The Inbetweeners Movie received mixed reviews from American critics, Bird's performance was met with praise. Steve Rose of The Guardian gave the film three stars out of five, giving particular praise to Simon Bird's performance and arguing that the film "updates the teen summer holiday formula surprisingly entertainingly, considering it doesn't subvert its one iota and the formula was already done previously with Holiday on the Buses and Kevin & Perry Go Large among others."[5]

gollark: Counting attacks from someone who already controls the environment the code is running in is kind of pointless when considering RCEoR and most stuff.
gollark: Okay, sure.
gollark: I mean, patch the code of the thing you are installing.
gollark: Well, sure. But in that case you could also just patch the code to not sandbox it like that.
gollark: That's very much useless for the majority of cases, except really weird ones.

References
  1. The Inbetweeners (series 1) (DVD). UK: Channel 4. |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  2. "The British Comedy Awards – The British Comedy Awards".
  3. "The British Comedy Awards – The British Comedy Awards".
  4. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 8 February 2015. Retrieved 25 January 2014.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  5. Rose, Steve (17 August 2011). "The Inbetweeners Movie – review". The Guardian. London.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.