The Rotters' Club was inspired by Bohumil Hrabal's Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age: a Czech language novel that consisted of one great sentence.

[4] Three teenage friends grow up in 1970s Britain watching their lives change as their world gets involved with IRA bombs, progressive and punk rock, girls and political strikes.

In 2003, a four-part BBC Radio 4 adaptation written by Simon Littlefield was broadcast with David Tennant playing the part of Bill Anderton and Frank Skinner as Sam Trotter.

[5] In early 2005, a three-part television adaptation written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais was broadcast on BBC Two, starring Geoff Breton as Ben Trotter, Nicholas Shaw as Doug Anderton, Peter Bankole as Steve Richards, and Rasmus Hardiker as Phillip Chase.

[7] A review in The Guardian was more ambivalent, critiquing Coe's tendency to introduce larger social and political issues into a coming-of-age story, arguing that various characters "undergo rites of passage that make no difference.