The Dickheads, a Bolton sixth-form clique, see their last summer before university hijacked by Red Rose, an app that flatters then threatens. Leader Rochelle downloads it first; within hours it sends her compromising photos to the entire school, tags her location and orders her to jump from a multi-storey car park. She obeys. The remaining seven episodes follow Wren, Ashley, Tariq, Antony, Noah and Jaya as the software migrates between their phones, exposing secrets and forcing lethal tasks under threat of loved ones dying. Each refusal raises the body count and tightens the circle of suspicion around them.
Creators Paul and Michael Clarkson, twins from Manchester, shot the series in winter 2021 around Bolton’s estates, Smithills Hall and Queens Park, giving the town’s empty mills and drizzle the texture of a 1990s horror video. Ramón Salazar directs the first two episodes with roaming Steadicam and strobing phone screens; later instalments move into Lisa Siwe’s colder domestic spaces where parents can’t see what their children are typing. Jessica Jones and Tim Morrish’s score buries playground rhymes under glitchy synth.
BBC Three released all eight 45-minute episodes on 15 August 2022, the first drama commissioned for the channel after it regained a broadcast slot. Netflix acquired global rights in February 2020 and dropped the series worldwide on 15 February 2023, where it entered the platform’s top ten in 17 countries but left no second-season order. The cast, led by Isis Hainsworth as doomed Roch and Amelia Clarkson as grieving Wren, were largely local sixth-formers themselves; Adam Nagaitis appears briefly as Wren’s distracted probation-officer father, a role cut down when COVID delays forced rewrites.
Production Details
BBC Three / 1 Season / 8 Episodes / 2022
Created by: Paul Clarkson, Michael Clarkson
Writer(s): Gemma Hurley
Producer(s): Camilla Bray[1]
Main Cast
Amelia Clarkson as Wren Davis
Isis Hainsworth as Rochelle Mason
Natalie Blair as Ashley Banister
Ali Khan as Tariq 'Taz' Sadiq
Ellis Howard as Antony Longwell
Harry Redding as Noah Royston
Ashna Rabheru as Jaya Mahajan
Adam Nagaitis as Rick Bennett
Natalie Gavin as Rachel Davis
Nia Roberts as Shelley Royston
Emma Fryer as Jennifer
Ruaridh Mollica as Patrick Hume
