Fresh Meat @ 10pm Wednesdays, Channel 4- 8 out of 10 (series review)

British sitcoms set in and around university life revolving around the escapades of students are few and far between. Unless you count The Young Ones. Or to an extent Rising Damp. Or recent attempts like the woeful BBC3 attempt Off the Hook and E4’s not much better Campus. Ok, so maybe a few more examples there.

Anyway, the latest attempt at making only the second ever decent British sitcom centred on student life (stick that on a trophy BAFTA) looked promising when it was announced Fresh Meat was from the creators of Peep Show and starred the next generation British acting talent including Greg McHugh, Zawe Ashton and Kimberley Nixon.

So, was it a Richard the Third than Geoff Hurst? (See what I did there? Eh? It’s overused, outdated student slang for a Third and a First, dolt.)

The show revolves around six students (plus on mystery occupant who doesn’t appear until the last episode of the series) thrown together into a flat share for their first year at university and their various escapades, naturally involving drink, sex and all-nighters writing essays due in the next morning.

Early on, the show struggled to justify its hour (including adverts) length as the gags failed to come through consistently enough and the development of plotlines was as slow as the queue for start of year course registration. As an aside, are these university jokes working for ya? Like I care, they’re going to be a feature of this review.

However, like the member of the opposite (or same) sex on your first night out in Fresher’s week that looks better and better as the night goes on, Fresh Meat began to improve around the mid-series point, starting with wonderful Student Demo episode where the laughs kept on flowing and the story arcs began to advance.

The show certainly suffered from Channel 4’s decision to run the four episodes of Top Boy on consecutive nights, leaving the finale of Fresh Meat to air some two weeks after the penultimate episode meaning that momentum was lost somewhat with a quick Wikipedia reading required to recall the plotlines, a similar process used when writing an essay after attending all the lectures on the subject hungover.

Elsewhere, many of the complaints about the show have been centred around whether it is an accurate portrayal of student life. This isn’t really the point as of course you need to heighten the drinking, drug taking and sex as that is where the laughs come from. The important thing is that it has a firm basis in reality with regard to situations like casual sex, fancying the people you live with, drinking and studying, last and maybe least. Furthermore, even the exaggeration for comic effect isn’t overly used as none of the characters get off with someone (randomer or otherwise) every night and the characters are more often seen watching TV than drinking, a familiar enough experience for anyone who is/was at university.

A handful of the characters are pretty lazy stereotypes in their origin; the standard “we all knew one of them at uni” types. There is the up himself posh twat (JP, played surprisingly well by Whiteall albeit in a role built for him), the fake new-world kinda girl who is trying to reinvent herself (Oregon/Mellissa played by Charlotte Ritchie), the shy, young bloke (Kingsley portrayed by Joe Thomas basically carrying on his role as Simon in The Inbetweeners) and the uber-nerd Howard (McHugh). However, the characters are given enough substance to make them indie pubs as opposed to boring Liquid/Oceania generic products. Yeah, that comparison definitely works…

Elements of Peep Show can be found in two of the main characters make up. JP is the classic Bain/Armstrong character of a person who thinks he is higher up the social strata than he actually is and finding himself often screwed over by the people he sees as cooler than him in his attempts to impress them.

Meanwhile, Vod (played amazingly by Ashton) is the female version of Peep Show’s Super Hans; drug and drink addled but with her own set of sound morals. Refreshingly, she gets all the best lines in the show (along with Howard) as it is rare to see such a strong female lead in contemporary sitcoms.

However, it is the secondary characters that really stand out from Howard’s brilliantly socially psychotic on/off friend Brian, the mysterious “invisible” housemate Paul Lamb (although the cause of his absence is a bit of a letdown), the male Professor Shales for playing the part of pervy, exploitative lecturer to perfection, the female Professor Shales and her reasons for allowing her husband to have an affair with Oregon and JP’s even more exploitative posh mates, who are upper class versions of the male Only Way is Essex vessels; cocky and making up their own words.

As well as boasting, eventually, a strong series of story arcs (basically three stories; Kingsley and Josie’s relationship, Vod and Oregon’s friendship and JP’s issues), there are a number of memorable comedic scenes including JP getting emotional after his Dad’s death with Oregon’s dying horse whilst off his face on LSD, Kingsley and Josie’s confrontation over their deal to ‘cure’ Kingsley’s virginity at the student rally and the academic’s dinner evening at Oregon and Professor Shales’ flat which descends into sexually frustrated bickering.

Fresh Meat is certainly worth the extra series it has been granted (which will air next September, aptly) as the potential is there for a memorable, if not classic, example of British sitcom; well scripted, well acted, tightly directed and with sets that are lovingly made down to the last detail. The potential is certainly there as the show has demonstrated it can mix gross-out, awkwardness comedy mixed with almost touching sensitive scenes, particularly (and bizarrely) the aforementioned JP finding out his Dad died scene and Vod sticking up for JP in the final episode after he has been conned by his upper class “mates”.

And with each of the three story arcs left unanswered after last night’s finale, I find myself not being able to wait to see what the conclusions are which is a rarity for me with any sitcom.

You can catch up on Fresh Meat on 4OD http://www.channel4.com/programmes/fresh-meat/4od#3256081