Greg McHugh

Peep Show and The ­Inbetweeners fans, listen up. Fresh Meat stars Joe Thomas and was written by Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, so deserves your attention.

It's a great sitcom about freshers in a university house-share - a sit so ripe with possibilities you might wonder why it hasn't been strip-mined for com before.

Actually it has; of course there was the classic The Young Ones, and some of you might have seen a short-lived BBC3 comedy a couple of years ago with much the same premise called Off The Hook, starring another Inbetweener, James Buckley.

But Fresh Meat is much more assured and has wonderfully subtle ­characters.

Joe Thomas is the token normal one as Kingsley, and Kimberley Nixon plays nice, sweet Josie, his female ­counterpart.

More intriguing are Vod (Zawe Ashton) who's like a younger, female, sexually ­ambiguous version of Peep Show's Super Hans and Oregon (Charlotte Ritchie) who tries too hard to be tough and play down her swottiness - and fails at both.

There's also Greg McHugh as Howard (think a young, Scottish Nick Frost).

But it's stand-up and panel-show regular Jack Whitehall who steals the show as cocky public schoolboy JP.

We first meet him in the men's toilet waving a wrap of cocaine at a total stranger. We've never seen Jack acting before but he turns out to be surprisingly good at it. Unless - of course - this is what he's like in real life.

There's nothing particularly, ah, fresh about Fresh Meat, but this new teen comedy drama has an inbuilt likability which ensures that it's instantly preferable to the likes of Skins.

Created by Peep Show overlords Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, it stars Joe Thomas from The Inbetweeners as a hapless first-year student sharing a house in Manchester with a gaggle of contrasting characters, including a quietly scene-stealing Greg McHugh (star of BBC Scotland's Gary: Tank Commander) and - this will take some swallowing, I know - hitherto useless comedian Jack Whitehall proving perfectly acceptable in his first acting role. Mind you, he's playing an objectionable posh twit, so it's hardly a stretch.

The distinctive fingerprints of Armstrong and Bain are all over the opening episode, which leans more towards comedy than drama, as the various misfits get to know each other while desperately trying to reinvent themselves.

Rather sweet at heart, it should be applauded for generally eschewing the puerility, moralising and self-conscious "edge" which usually blights this genre. And if all it achieves is in some way vaguely justifying the existence of Jack Whitehall, then that has to count for something. Doesn't it?

Peep Show creators go back to college for Fresh Meat

Jack Whitehall, Greg McHugh and The Inbetweeners' Joe Thomas are among the stars of Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong's new C4 university-set comedy.

Tank Commander creator on plans for movie version

Tank Commander could be set to ride on to the big screen, after Greg McHugh revealed he's working on an idea for a movie version of the hit BBC Scotland comedy.

Greg McHugh nervous about Gary going national

For Gary: Tank Commander, the war is over. England has waved the white flag and the comedy hero has won the battle to take his camp sense of humour over the border for BBC Three.

An interview with Will Andrews

Will Andrews is a comedian who has performed on stage as both a solo stand up (usually as the character Tony Carter), as well as doing sketches with sometimes-partner Greg McHugh, for the highly praised Will & Greg show.

'If you dinny like folk, you dinny vote fir thum'

Hiya, ma name's Gary, um a tank commander, and for the next five weeks in the run-up tae the Scottish election, um going tae be pure sayin it like it is, well no sayin it - cos you're reading it, but I'll be saying it as I type it, cos that's just what a do. Anyway, the election: here goes.

Interview: Greg McHugh, comedian (Gary: Tank Commander)

Cheesy pasta. Two words that this time last year meant nothing more than just plain old macaroni cheese. Fast forward 12 months and one series of Gary: Tank Commander and suddenly "cheesy pasta" has become a national catchphrase, vying with Rab C Nesbitt's "I'll tell you this, boy" and The Rev IM Jolly's mournful "Ah've had a helluva year".

Now in its second series, Gary: Tank Commander marks - along with Limmy's Show and Burnistoun - an unprecedented upswing in the standard of Scottish TV comedy.

Mostly set on the Afghanistan frontline, this likeable sitcom stars Greg McHugh (who also writes) as a cheerful, naive soldier mainly concerned with having a laugh and getting home.

It's refreshing that Gary's campness isn't a laboured joke. Rather than sneer at the incongruity of his blithe personality in a macho world, he's presented as a popular - albeit exasperating - member of the team. The humour is well observed, not cruel or overplayed.

Given its setting, however, it's oddly apolitical. McHugh is more interested in humanising "our boys" than in making any larger satirical statement: maybe their petty banter is a statement in itself. But whereas wartime comedies such as M*A*S*H (a topical comment on Vietnam, despite its Korean setting) never shirked from the horrors of combat, McHugh pretends they don't exist.

Nevertheless, it works on its own agreeable terms. But I'd like to see some genuinely angry comedy in 2011.

Interview: Greg McHugh

Greg McHugh answers some Q&A questions.