Kevin the Teenager
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kevin Patterson is a character created and played by the British comedian Harry Enfield.
He first appeared in Harry Enfield's Television Programme as an annoyingly energetic little brother who constantly vexed his older brother with his irritating catchphrases and habit of bursting into his room when he was with a girl.
In the first episode of Harry Enfield and Chums (the new name for the show), Kevin, now sans his older brother, reached his thirteenth birthday. His parents watched in horror as Kevin lost his sense of dress, courtesy and posture, thus becoming Kevin the Teenager, one of the most memorable of Harry Enfield's comic creations.
Wearing a baseball cap the wrong way round and with his ginger hair flopping over his face, Kevin is incredibly rude to his despairing parents, frequently shouting "I hate you, I wish I'd never been born!" at them, and insisting that everything is "so unfair!". In one sketch, when his father asks him to wash his car, Kevin ends up taking the entire day to complete the task due to his inability to get out of bed before noon and an apparent allergy to work.
His best friend is another teenaged boy named Perry (played by the actress Kathy Burke). They starred in a 2000 feature film, Kevin & Perry Go Large.
One of the interesting points made in the sketches is that teenage boys are always very polite to all parents except their own. Kevin and Perry heap immense amounts of abuse on their own suffering mother and father, yet are incredibly polite to each other's parents. In one sketch, Kevin's plans to host a party go wrong and ends with the house being trashed. Despite his frequent declarations of hatred towards his parents, Kevin ends up crying whilst his long-suffering mother gives him a much needed hug.
Aside from playing video games, Kevin's one aim in life is to lose his virginity. He eventually does, during a drunken party. The following morning, he wakes up transformed into a nice, polite and helpful young man, and his mum later realises it was a dream. Unless Kevin's loss of his virginity was part of the dream too, the plot of Kevin & Perry Go Large would have been one massive continuity error, as one aspect of the film is for Kevin and Perry to lose their virginity.
The term "Kevin the Teenager" has entered British vernacular to describe any adolescent who is bad-tempered or rebellious ("He's a right Kevin the Teenager!"). It can even be applied to female adolescents.
Kevin's father has been played by three actors. He was originally played by Duncan Preston but the most famous version is probably Stephen Moore. In Kevin & Perry Go Large, Kevin's father was played by James Fleet. Kevin's mother has been played by one actress throughout, Louisa Rix.
