Adrian Mole, nerdy teen narrator of unreliable memoirs

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole & it's follow-up The Growing Pain of Adrian Mole (from the books by Sue Townsend) was one of my favourite programs in the 1980s. Loved the catchy theme song, "I'm ... profoundly in love with Pandora" by Ian Dury. Adrian Mole has a bit of the Billy Liar fantasising persona about him but his reality check is having to grow up in Thatcherite England. Adrian is politicised and socially aware (albeit socially inept). His diary outpourings show him constantly agonising over typical teenage boy things - his complexion, his height, his relationship with his fickle & sometimes indifferent girlfriend Pandora. But Adrian is atypical in some ways, he is overly bookish, sees himself as an intellectual and would-be writer, in reality he a prototype of the nerd. But what really lands the naïve young Mole in regular trouble is his tendency to confidently misinterpret events around him - with disastrous & hilarious results! Gian Sammarco as the bespectacled Adrian looks like a bit like the young Daniel Radcliffe, Harry Potter sans wizardry! Interestingly, both Sammarco & Lindsey Stagg (Pandora) decided pretty much as soon as Series 2 finished that acting was not for them & left the profession soon after. In the series Adrian is forced to make visits to old-age pensioners as part of a school club community service. He finds this somewhat distasteful at first but comes to enjoy the experience. In a spectacular demonstration of life imitating art, Sammarco these days works as a geriatric nurse in Northampton! A retinue of great supporting actors in Adrian Mole, especially Julie Waters.