Stephen Graham plans father and son book after ‘experience making Adolescence’

Actor Stephen Graham is to release a book filled with messages from fathers to their sons after being inspired by his “experience of making Adolescence”.

Letters To Our Sons, written by Graham and psychology lecturer Orly Klein, will be published in October next year and will feature advice the fathers wished to pass on to their sons and what in their opinion “being a man should be about”.

Fathers are able to submit their entries to the book on its website, which says the book aims to create “open and honest conversation between fathers and their sons”, with the hope it will be given to sons by fathers “when they haven’t got the words”.

Graham said: “After my experience of making Adolescence, I was really surprised with the amount of dads that came up to me, and told me the kind of conversations they’ve been having with their sons.

“We came up with this wonderful idea to ask you dads out there to write some letters for a book, where you can really talk to your sons and communicate with your sons, because a good friend of mine told me about this beautiful idea that Orly had with her son when he turned 13.”

Klein added: “We asked a load of men who we loved and admired to write him a letter on what they believe makes a good man, and what they wish they’d have known when they were younger.

“And we ended up with all these letters with amazing like nuggets of wisdom in them and life lessons for him to sort of carry through now for the rest of his life in becoming a man.”

Graham said the letters “can be about anything”, with Klein adding that “they can be funny, they can be sad, they can be moving”, and saying that those entering pieces do not need to be “a great writer”.

The 52-year-old actor added: “Please, please, please, please, please, put pen to paper or get that keyboard out, get someone else to help if you want.

“I’m dyslexic, but I’m still going to do one so my missus will probably help me, but get your letters in please so we can read them, and you can help us make a book that can hopefully talk to generations to come.

“So please help us make this book.”

For every letter sent in for the book, publishers Bloomsbury will be making a donation to the MANUP? charity and and social enterprise Dad La Soul, both of which help young men with their mental health.

Netflix’s Adolescence features This Is England star and co-creator Graham as Eddie Miller, the father of 13-year-old Jamie, played by Owen Cooper, 15, who sees armed police burst into his home to arrest his son.

Eddie is then chosen as Jamie’s appropriate adult, accompanying him at the police interview and learning the extent of what his son is accused of doing.

The programme, co-written by Graham alongside Jack Thorne, examines so-called incel (involuntary celibate) culture, which has led to misogyny online and bullying using social media.

Adolescence has prompted a national conversation around online safety, with Graham and Thorne accepting an invite to a parliamentary meeting on the subject by Labour MP Josh MacAlister.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has also praised the show, urging Parliament and schools to watch it, and saying he had watched the show with his own children.