TV series Girls resonates with everyone who has ever been twenty (even boys)

"I don't want to freak you out but I think I may be the voice of my generation, or at least a voice, of a generation," says Hannah to her parents, who have stopped supporting her financially, in the first episode of Girls.

Hannah is a likeable twentysomething trying to navigate her way through the many difficulties familiar to the Jilted Generation. She is doing an unpaid internship in publishing, trying to pay rent on her New York apartment, get recognised as a writer and convince her non-committal sex-friend Adam to treat her decently.

When she tells her parents about her writing she isn’t being arrogant, she’s just accidentally drunk a cup of opium tea. In fact, the uncertainty she expresses is typical of what she and her friends are facing as they try to work out who they are.

Girls is based on actress Lena Dunham’s own experiences. It is painfully honest and real, far more so than Sex and the City ever felt, especially the awkward sex scenes.

The characters are more sympathetic than the Sex and the City lot too. Despite the show’s title there are boys, and at times I sympathised with them having to support their girlfriends. It seems they can’t do anything right. Hannah’s flatmate Marni tells her over-affectionate boyfriend Charlie: “You’re so busy respecting me that you look past who I actually am.”

Dunham has been criticised for not including any black people. But this didn’t matter to me. Girls is an entertaining programme about privileged, middle-class white girls.

I didn’t watch it because of how politically correct it may or may not be, or because I heard it had a right-on attitude to body issues (although it does and that’s good).

Girls is great because it is half an hour of emotionally realistic, funny entertainment that should resonate with anyone who has ever been in their twenties, even boys.

Girls airs on Sky Atlantic on Mondays at 10pm