Tell Me Everything creator explains more about ITVX drama

Created by Mark O'Sullivan, who grew up in Welwyn Garden City, the provocative new teen drama is set in Welwyn Garden City and location filming took placed there last year. 

Filming also took place in Letchworth, near the fountain in Broadway - and even in the fountain as you can see below.

Spike Fearn as Louis, Eden H. Davies as Jonny, Lauryn Ajufo as Neve, Carla Woodcock as Zia and Tessa Lucille as Regan in the Broadway fountain in Letchworth. (Image: ITVX/DRAMA REPUBLIC)

A drama about growing up in smalltown Britain in the 2020s, Tell Me Everything introduces us to 16-year-old Jonny Murphy, who is trying his best to navigate through this world.

Growing up hasn’t been easy, and although loved by his friends and family, Jonny suffers from undiagnosed depression which he does his best to hide.

So when he is faced with the most gut-wrenching tragedy, Jonny has to decide – is he going to let events overtake him or is he going to learn how to live?

Eden H. Davies as Jonny, Lauryn Ajufo as Neve, and Spike Fearn as Louis at the funfair in ITVX teen drama Tell Me Everything. (Image: ITVX, DRAMA REPUBLIC)

His oldest friends, Louis and Neve, are battling their own issues and emotional struggles, yet continue to be there for Jonny.

So they are right to be suspicious of Mei when she comes into his life. She seems to understand Jonny, but increasingly appears to be a dangerous influence on him.

Meanwhile, new college mates, Regan, Saj and Zia, initially appear cool and care-free, but as Jonny, Neve and Louis get to know them, it soon becomes clear that everyone is fighting their own personal battles.

Callina Liang as Mei in ITVX drama Tell Me Everything. (Image: ITVX, DRAMA REPUBLIC)

Here writer, actor and executive producer Mark O'Sullivan explains more about new ITVX series Tell Me Everything.

"It’s about those teenage years when the world is opening up to you in all its messy, drunken, dangerous, brilliant glory," says Mark.

"That brief window when you might not yet be a fully paid-up adult, but you’re definitely not a kid any more. You don’t really know who or what you are - but pretty much anything seems possible."

The series is partly based on Mark's own experiences of growing up in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, in the 1990s.

"Everyone’s adolescence is tumultuous (isn’t it?) and mine was no exception. I had all the universal never-to-be repeated first kisses, loves, hangovers, heartbreaks, comedowns.

"I also experienced loss, grief, a fractured family, addiction, and the beginnings of a tricky life-long relationship with my own mental health struggles. Out of this came the starting point for Tell Me Everything.

"Despite having tried to escape it my entire adult life, I decided to go back to my hometown, Welwyn Garden City, as the setting for this story. Welwyn’s an oddly dream-like place, sort of suburbia and sort of Centerparcs… and it’s where Jonny Murphy lives.

"Jonny is very, very loosely based on teenage me, and he and his friends battle with some of the challenges I went through when I was growing up… plus those uniquely contemporary problems my own teenage children and their generation face. (If people my age think we had it tough in the pre-internet world, we should think again.)

Eden H. Davies as central character Jonny in new ITVX teen drama Tell Me Everything. (Image: ITVX, DRAMA REPUBLIC)

"My kids and their friends have been informal consultants since I started writing Tell Me Everything, and I hope they feel like their lives are reflected honestly and accurately in it."

He adds: "They’ve definitely learned not to say anything too catchy around me – some of my favourite lines have come from them."

Mark O'Sullivan is best known for co-writing - and also starring in - Stevenage-based Channel 4 sitcom Lee and Dean. He played Dean in that comedy about two Stevenage builders who are childhood friends.

As for his new ITV series, he says: "Creating and writing Tell Me Everything, my first drama, has been an exhilarating, exhausting rollercoaster.

"To be accurate, it’s a drama with comedy, as I’ve always found it impossible in life not to search for the humour in the darkest, saddest moments.

"I’ve cried, laughed, and cringed whilst writing (and filming in some of the actual places where I spent my teenage years – that’s quite a weird experience). I think we’ve made the show I’d have wanted to watch in my bedroom at home in 90s Welwyn Garden City.

"If 90s teenage Mark was watching, I hope he’d realise he wasn’t alone, however much he felt like he was.

"And I hope he’d see that most things get better, some things don’t last, and it’s fine to not know who or what you are - you’ve got the rest of your life to figure that out.

"All that matters now is where you’re heading, who’s going to be there, what you’re wearing, and what ‘firsts’ tonight will bring..."

Lauryn Ajufo as Neve, Spike Fearn as Louis and Eden H. Davies as Jonny in Tell Me Everything, ITV's new teen drama which launches on ITVX. (Image: ITVX, DRAMA REPUBLIC)