{"id":630350,"date":"2026-09-20T09:24:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T09:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/630350\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T09:24:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T09:24:12","slug":"what-you-need-to-know-about-sharon-horgans-new-series-youth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/630350\/","title":{"rendered":"What you need to know about Sharon Horgan’s new series, Youth"},"content":{"rendered":"

IS THERE A better chronicler of the joys, pains and absurdities of women\u2019s lives than Sharon Horgan?<\/p>\n

The writer, actor and showrunner has brought us many excellent shows over the years, from Pulling through to Catastrophe and on to Motherland and Bad Sisters. She\u2019s charted what it\u2019s like to be a woman at many stages of life, and now her new series Youth takes on single life in your 50s.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what you need to know about Youth.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s it all about?<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot
\n Sharon Horgan Colin Hutton<\/p>\n

Colin Hutton\n<\/p>\n

Youth is about Alex (played by Horgan herself), a literary agent in her 50s who is divorced, single and has a son who\u2019s about to head to college.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s trying to figure out how to move forward in life, in romance and in work. Meanwhile, she\u2019s also trying to care for her aging parents and parenting her son.<\/p>\n

But she\u2019s also dealing with the aches and literal pains that come with being in your 50s, and how they might impact on her plans for the rest of her life. No pressure, eh?<\/p>\n

HBO Max<\/a> \/ YouTube<\/p>\n

Who stars in it?<\/p>\n

Aside from Sharon Horgan, there\u2019s Sharlene Whyte as her best friend Sam, who she works with and who is trying to match her with older men.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s Rupert Friend, the younger man she hooks up with.<\/p>\n

Aran Murphy plays her slightly wayward son, Ruairi (we do salute Horgan\u2019s commitment to always including Irish names in her shows). And if Aran looks familiar, it\u2019s because his dad is Cillian Murphy.<\/p>\n

What has Horgan said about Youth?<\/p>\n

In an interview with Vanity Fair<\/a>, Horgan said she wanted to look at ageing \u201cthrough the lens of a divorced woman who feels that she has a very specific amount of time left to find happiness\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe wants to have this valuable, creative, couldn\u2019t-give-a-fuck kind of life, but she\u2019s not there yet,\u201d Horgan told Vanity Fair of Alex. \u201cI guess I\u2019m just trying to be honest.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The idea for the show emerged during chats with HBO about Horgan\u2019s next series, as she filled them in on her own life. She\u2019s described it as \u201cautofiction\u201d (Horgan herself is divorced and a mum to grown-up kids). It\u2019s brave to mine your real life for TV, but we trust Horgan to tell a nuanced, funny story about life today.<\/p>\n

Who\u2019s behind it?<\/p>\n

\"YOUTH_101_FG_15101\"
\n Sharon Horgan and Aran Murphy HBO Max<\/p>\n

HBO Max\n<\/p>\n

Youth is produced by Merman, a production company founded by Horgan and Clelia Mountford, which also makes shows like Amandaland, Bad Sisters, and Vladimir. Sharon Horgan is not just starring in Youth, but writes and executive produces the series too.<\/p>\n

Its director is Dawn Shadforth, who was behind music videos for Garbage and, notably, Kylie\u2019s video for Spinning Around. She\u2019s also directed an episode of His Dark Materials, and the series Adult Material and Mood.<\/p>\n

When can we watch Youth?<\/p>\n

The first two episodes will debut Monday, 21 September on HBO Max, and will be followed by one new episode weekly. There are eight episodes in total.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"IS THERE A better chronicler of the joys, pains and absurdities of women\u2019s lives than Sharon Horgan? The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[163478,93,61,60,282,191643],"class_list":["post-630350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-best-of-the-box","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-tv","tag-watercooler-moment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}