Sam Bain

Saying goodbye to our favourite students from Manchester Medlock University was always going to be hard but we felt that writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong did an admirable job in wrapping up the stories of Fresh Meat's six primary characters. What Bain and Armstrong did particularly well in our opinion was to capture that feeling of doubt about what's next to come after uni but did in a way that was both funny and touching. The characters all had their own separate stories whether it be Kingsley's affair with an older woman, Vod's struggle with crippling debt or Oregon's reign of terror at the student union. But it was when the characters all came together that Fresh Meat shone the most which was best exemplified when the housemates were all trapped in their cellar as their abode was ransacked. Overall we felt that Fresh Meat was given a fitting conclusion and gave all six characters a great send-off.

The final round of Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong's comedy has been all about moving onwards, upwards and hopefully not downwards, as the six housemates approach graduation. JP and Kingsley take the coach down to London for interviews, the former on the way to his brother's company, the latter headed to the hallowed ground of 6Music, while Howard tags along in order to scope out the local environs of Ordnance Survey. More perfectly pitched comedy and perfectly pitched drama from this exceptionally good series.

The last-ever series (boo) of Fresh Meat told us that comedy on C4 might never get better. Eleven weeks away from finals, one night off. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" asks tequila Josie of the supine JP, and therein awaits an entire ocean of stupidity.

The naming of JP's brother as "Tomothy", and JP's explanation, was quiet genius, as has been the strength of Jack Whitehall, and writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, all along.

Fresh Meat (Monday, Channel 4), Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong's comedy drama about a group of Manchester students, is now back for its fourth and final series. Dennis Potter once said that you should regard your younger self with both tenderness and contempt, and this is a trick that Fresh Meat brilliantly pulls off with its own young characters, as, safe in the bosom of university, they try on various selves to see how well they fit. Like Bain and Armstrong's Peep Show, it's also packed with great jokes.

On Monday, with finals approaching, the students were increasingly mournful that their university days are coming to an end -- and many Fresh Meat fans, I suspect, will be feeling the same.

Fresh Meat review: time to grow up, sadly

Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain's excellent comedy drama isn't quite as fresh as it once was - but it hasn't gone off. Just aged a little.

Fresh Meat series 4: bleak truths and knob gags

We chat to the cast of Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong's university-set comedy drama, Fresh Meat, which returns tonight on Channel 4...

Fresh Meat review

When I first watched Fresh Meat I had no idea what to expect from the show or that over four years on it would still be going strong. However somehow Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong's university-based comedy drama has gone from strength to strength and they've been given the rare opportunity to end the series in the way they want to.

Fresh Meat: it's time for the students to grow up

We may have seen the last of Peep Show, the fantastic long-running sitcom about two mismatched housemates, but another comedy from writers Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain still has one more hurrah to go. Fresh Meat (Channel 4), about a group of layabout, mismatched students in Manchester starring Jack Whitehall as misguided, perennially baffled public schoolboy JP, has begun its fourth and final series.