Jack Whitehall

When undergrad sitcom Fresh Meat first aired two years ago, it felt like it could become a training ground for cutting-edge talent, and that the glamorous, talented likes of Zawe Ashton and Jack Whitehall would just be passing through en route to greater career triumphs. It's now three series in and, unhappily for their agents, but happily for us, the original cast members are all still in place. Like that half-drunk cup of coffee that festers under every student's bed, Fresh Meat can no longer claim to be fresh, but it has grown a life of its own.

By now, our old friends at 28 Hartnell are world-weary second-years and JP (Jack Whitehall) is particularly eager to demonstrate his maturity. He rechristened the house "Pussy Haven" and offered Howard (Greg McHugh) guidance in the fine art of pulling: "Freshers' week started yesterday, they're already getting less vulnerable by the hour." Oregon (Charlotte Ritchie) and Vod (Zawe Ashton) are back from a summer backpacking, where Vod picked up a Latin lover and Oregon discovered herself. Again. "I just realised some stuff in South America... like, some people are rich and some people are poor."

As you'd expect from the writers of Peep Show, it's still very funny, but they do play favourites. JP had all the best lines this episode, leaving new housemate Candice a little underwritten by comparison.

In the latest series of Fresh Meat, Kingsley (Joe Thomas) says that whole weird thing, him and Josie, is "over like Dover". Actually, Josie has transferred to Southampton, but she's still a permanent presence in the Manchester student house via Skype on an iPad. And later they go down there, for a traffic light party.

There's seamen aplenty too - without the "a", I'm afraid. "I've got a sex engine and it runs on cum," says red-trousered JP (Jack Whitehall), all in a froth about the new batch of hotties. Since starting his TV acting career in Fresh Meat, he has pretty much become Mr Right Now. Quite rightly - he's hilarious.

It's sticky and smelly, spunky and puerile. There's not much in the way of story, so it has no right to work over an hour. But it does, somehow. Well, I do know how: by being very funny about the funniest - and most tragic - time (it also rings a bit true, amazingly). I think I can actually feel what a good time Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain had creating it. I know I'm having a good time watching.

Radio Times review

The university comedy returns for a third series, with the unlikely housemates as second years - and there's still only one thing on JP's mind. Comedian Jack Whitehall was born to play the show's gilet-clad posh berk, who tonight gatecrashes the freshers' fair to attract "hotties". Rivalling Whitehall for the best gags are man-eater Vod (Zawe Ashton) and oddball Howard (Greg McHugh), who comes out with his most outlandish confession yet: he's landed a date.

Josie's in Southampton after being kicked off her course, but still mooning at Kingsley across cyberspace. There's also a new arrival: a home-schooled first year with an unfortunate array of knitwear.

Faye Marsay introduces new fresher Candice

The White Queen actress joins Jack Whitehall, Zawe Ashton, Joe Thomas, Kimberley Nixon, Greg McHugh and Charlotte Ritchie for the new series of the Channel 4 comedy Fresh Meat.

Jack Whitehall - I cannot be left alone with a vibrator

JP isn't the only one with a childish sense of humour, as Kimberley Nixon and Charlotte Ritchie reveal the comedian's dildo pranks...

This comedy drama about university housemates starring comedian Jack Whitehall is back for a third series, and this time they are no longer naïve freshers.

As the gang return to Manchester Medlock as second years, JP (Whitehall) is now their landlord, having bought the house.

They are joined by new girl Candice, who was home-schooled for the first year and doesn't know who Simon Cowell is.

But the ridiculous schemes continue as Howard and JP try to coax female freshers to join their Dry Slope Skiing Society, and there's trouble when Vod's hunky Mexican summer fling turns up in town.

Sam Bain, who co-writes the comedy with Jesse Armstrong, says of the partnership, "There is some shouting - although usually fun shouting rather than aggressive shouting!"

They are not past their sell-by date yet, but as the student flatmates of Fresh Meat start their second year (and third series), they are no longer quite so tender. Happily, however, they are still very funny, all the more so for their endearing attempts to seem jaded. "I thought I knew everything, but really I knew nothing," muses Oregon, thinking back to her first-year self. "Now, I know everything!"

She doesn't, although she has spent the summer in South America with Vod, who has acquired a boyfriend who speaks no English and whose every utterance has to be translated through Oregon's gritted teeth. "He says, 'I love you'... I'd have thought you'd know that one by now, I did that one a LOT."

Meanwhile, JP (Jack Whitehall, looking about 35) is still painfully convinced that he's some kind of ladies' man, while hopeless Kingsley somehow accidentally is. A misguided party, several inappropriate hook-ups and - of course - no mention whatsoever of anything to do with classes or studying: the university life still proves fertile ground for cringeworthy humour. And a dopey running gag involving Josie, who has transferred to another uni, ends up being far more comical than it should be.

But Fresh Meat's real strength is in its characters, who are each trying to be something they're not (apart, perhaps, from Howard, who has accepted his loserdom and will probably end up more successful than them all). Yet they're all completely recognisable as basically sincere young people just trying to work out who they are.

Almost by stealth, this vaguely satirical, topical stand-up showcase has made it to a fifth series. Functioning as a sort of halfway-house testing ground between Mock the Week and Have I Got News for You, it's seen a surprisingly illustrious stream of light-entertainment talent pass through its doors.

Jack Whitehall, Kevin Bridges, Patrick Kielty and Rich Hall have all made appearances before moving on; this time Paul Chowdhry takes over hosting duties while regulars Seann Walsh and Josh Widdicombe are joined by newbies Simon Evans, Romesh Ranganathan and Angela Barnes in sticking the boot into the week's news. Decent post-pub fun, if you're in the market for that sort of thing.

Jack Whitehall's joke writer works alone with new book

You may not recognise Freddy Syborn, but you will have heard his punchlines. Syborn, 26, is Jack Whitehall's joke writer.

The scheduling of the first two series of Sam Bain's and Jesse Armstrong's student comedy mimicked the university year by starting in early October, so it's a later-than-usual, but still hugely welcome, return for Vod, Oregon, Howard, JP, Kingsley and Josie - except that Josie has transferred to university in Southampton, her inclusion here a stroke of comic genius.

Renaming the house "Pussy Haven", JP (Jack Whitehall) starts a dry-slope skiing society with a strict admittance policy described as "eugenics run by FHM". Vod (Zawe Ashton) has meanwhile returned from her travels with an amorous South American she soon bores of, and Howard manages to land a proper date. The outcome is genuinely heartbreaking.