Radio Times review

E4's big drama of the week, My Mad Fat Diary (Mondays) was about the agony of a teen whose struggle to be normal has made her sanity bend and break. Sharon Rooney was Rae Earl, whose real diary has been dramatised and moved from the 80s to 1996. The benefits of this weren't obvious: it made 32 the ideal viewer age, which is a bit old for E4, you'd think, and it wasn't a very careful period piece. Rae lusted after Archie, a hot geek whose spectacles, hair, speech ("Style it out!") and ironic pop covers on choppy acoustic guitar were all completely 2012.

Rae emerged from psychiatric hospital and tried to make friends, with the twin stigmas of her medical history and her size representing the teenage shame of not being able to hide that you're a freak. The "mad" and the "fat" were treated differently: Rae's shape got her into harmless, cartoon embarrassments, like getting stuck halfway down a slide at a pool party, which were immediately forgiven by her suspiciously compassionate new mates. She was better at fitting in than some teens ever are. She got invited to a pool party!

Much more acute were the scenes in the hospital between Rae and her tiny tomboy friend Tix (Sophie Wright). When Rae lost her nerve and broke back into the ward, Tix was tenderly furious that she would think of giving in. That this reaction came from a deep affection, forged by having admitted their terrors to each other, was vividly conveyed by Rooney and Wright and a lot more affecting than the drunken scrapes and lagered Britpop soundtrack in the outside world. We need to get Tix out of there.

Brilliantly holding this Frank-Spencer-In-The-Bell-Jar mash together, though, was future star Sharon Rooney, totally convincing as a teen, as a soul determined to avoid self-destruction, and as the sort of wildly libidinous beast young females rarely are on TV. Rae was the hunter and Archie was the prey: "I'd shag him," said Rae in one of the many salty inner monologues Rooney delivered with extra relish, "till there was nothing left except a pair of glasses and a damp patch." My Mad Fat Diary would be better telly if all the best stuff wasn't going on inside Rae's head, but Rooney created a vibe in which you forgave that and wanted her to win.

The second dip into this adaptation of a teenage Rae Earl's real-life diary. With BFF Chloe boasting of her tryst with a mystery man, Rae worries that she'll never attract a boyfriend as long as she considers herself little more than a "blob with a gob". Her fears briefly make way for delight when crush Archie asks her out on a date, only to return in a frenzied campaign to disguise her sexual inexperience. Sharon Rooney impresses once more as Rae in what is rapidly becoming a must-see series.

There was much to admire in My Mad Fat Diary, E4's new comedy drama about a binge-eating 16st teenage girl growing up in the Britpop era. Sharon Rooney, who plays the lead role of Rae Earl, already deserves to be on the Best Newcomer lists when awards season comes around again. And the soundtrack was well chosen. Although given the subject matter I was expecting some Feeder.

"Stick on Now 33. Are you kidding, it's got Father and Son by Boyzone on it." As someone who grew up with posters of Oasis, Pulp and Blur plastered on his bedroom wall, My Mad Fat Diary was a nostalgia-fest that really struck the mark. It was a Gallagher-esque strut down Britpop memory lane, which felt all the more cosy in the week that HMV went bust.

Ocean Colour Scene, Kula Shaker, lemon Hooch and cut-outs of Damon Albarn. Anyone who lived their teenage years between 1994 and 1997 would have felt right at home with this new E4 teen drama, which takes the diaries of Rae Earl and gives them a '90s twist.

Sharon Rooney makes her TV debut as awkward teen Rae, who has a history of mental health issues, a bonkers mum who sleeps with foreign lovers and goes on alphabet diets ("I started on 'S' because I got a load of scotch eggs on the cheap") and a group of mates who think that knowing their Eels from their Manic Street Preachers is all that really matters in the world.

British teen dramas work best when they capture the intense awkwardness and raging insecurities of adolescent life and My Mad Fat Diary does that with some serious style and a killer sense of humour. There's a dark edge to Rae's character as she deals with her demons and as she bumbles her way through teen crushes ("I want to sex his face") she's easy to root for.

The sheen, gloss and Hollywood looks of US teen dramas such as Glee or 90210 provide fun and escapism, but I can't take the stunning Lea Michele seriously as a teen role model. As if she's ever had a spotty back or a hangover that feels like "an orangutan being sick on my brain".

My only request for next week? Can we have some Shed Seven on the soundtrack please?

Interview: Sharon Rooney

Two minutes in to chatting with Sharon Rooney about My Mad Fat Diary and my shorthand is turning Scottish cartwheels, trying to decipher her rich Glaswegian accent. It's a credit to her convincing portrayal of the decidedly English teen diarist Rae in E4's new comedy drama that her voice comes as a surprise.

Despite me not being in the key demographic I really enjoyed My Mad Fat Diary due to its focus on being an awkward teenager something most of us experience in our adolescence. Rae's uncertainty what to do during her first meeting with the gang and her later embarrassment in trying on a swimsuit rung very true while I really cared about whether or not she'd find her place outside of the institution.

The dialogue is realistic and is not afraid to be crude in order to demonstrate how a sixteen year old girl's mind works - for example, in one scene Rae says that Archie would 'make a priest kick through a stain glass window'.

Sharon Rooney was absolutely sensational as Rae nailing both the comic dialogue and the darker scenes where she returned to how she felt when she was first bought into the institution. Ultimately though it is the setting of 1996 that makes My Mad Fat Diary really come alive, as it is a time where I too became a teenager, and seeing Archie perform an acoustic version of Return of the Mack really bought back memories as did the references to Now 33. The only negative element of the show was that it made me feel very old that a programme could now consider my childhood to be worthy of a nostalgic drama. The script, performances and style of My Mad Fat Diary make it a really sweet and funny watch and one that I'll definitely be keeping with over the coming weeks.

Rising star Sharon Rooney says she wishes there'd be more dramas like this one on TV where she was growing up, because it would have made her and other teens feel that they weren't alone in being unable to join normal society. She plays Rae Earl, whose published diaries documented the angst she felt in the 1980s. The new TV version moves the action to 1996 and plays heavily on Rae's tendency to end up in horribly embarrassing situations. Rooney will make you want Rae to prevail.

As if being 16 years old, 16-and-a-half stone and a resident of smalltown Lincolnshire wasn't bad enough, Rae (Sharon Rooney) has just spent four months in a psychiatric ward. So it's understandable that she might fancy a new start, under the watchful eyes of her clued-up doctor (Ian Hart) and erratic mother (Claire Rushbrook). But can she hide her past from her new friends and overcome her issues to make the most of teenage life in the Britpop era? Based on writer Rae Earl's real-life diaries, E4's latest series is shaping up to be a triumph to file alongside Skins and Misfits, while being entirely different to both and a tougher sell (neither as on-trend as the former nor as high concept as the latter) than either.

Key to its success is Rooney's empathetic, guileless lead performance, while the comedy and tragedy inherent in the premise is deftly handled. An appealing, confident opener.

My Mad Fat Diary: review

There are some nice performances notably Claire Rushbrook and Ian Hart as the token adults and new comer Sharon Rooney leads the production with humour and personal charm. However, like much 'comedy drama', I feel that My Mad Fat Diary lacks that the emotional punch to be a drama or the gags or wit to be a comedy; and we will end up with little more than another soap opera for adolescents.

Sharon Rooney: nice to see normal-looking people on TV

The star of E4's My Mad Fat Diary talks role models and teenage insecurities.