Is there a doctor in the house?

The storming box office performance of The Inbetweeners Movie confirms the four actors from the BAFTA nominated E4 series as stars, with the crudely hilarious movie taking £2.5 million on its first day of release in the UK.

Simon Bird, James Buckley, Blake Harrison and Joe Thomas are ready to move on to even bigger and better things now, now they have finally said goodbye to characters they were cast as originally in 2008.

“These four young comic actors are the best four young comic actors of their generation,” says Iain Morris, who with writing partner Damon Beesley created The Inbetweeners, scripting three series and now the film. “They’ve made those characters their own.”

But, given that the original audition process was so long and so many actors were seen there must have been some who got away who are now well known for other things.

“Matt Smith, the best Doctor Who of all time, was up for the role of Will. He was really, really brilliant and so funny, just a brilliant actor.  And clever. He had all the comic timing you wanted, all the dramatic sense you might need.”

“We spent a long time in development,” Beesley adds. “I think if we had to make a decision very quickly and we were going off to shoot, we would definitely have gone with Matt at that point.  But it just became a very long drawn out thing, and he had other projects on the go. Quite big projects, as it turned out, but we loved him.”