Tom Perry

A berserk mix of Les Misérables, board games, pyjamas and beardy men in glasses behaving like 15-year-old nerds, Badults (BBC3) is a kind of Friends for the stunted generation, a British spin on The Big Bang Theory where clueless misfits bond against the world outside.

I'll admit, the first five minutes had me climbing the walls at the unsubtle geekiness of it all - three hopeless blokes and a token woman who, in the real world, would never have been within a mile of them - shouting unfunny lines at each other.

But weirdly, after a while, my defences were broken down by the sheer relentless energy Ben Clark, Matthew Crosby and Tom Perry threw at the screen.

It was like watching a Hollywood movie where a starlet knows it's her big break and gives it her all. Coming on like a sixth-form revue on speed, the Badults gang leapt from musical theatre fantasy to murder weekends to perving over the lady who does sign-language for BBC2 shows with reckless abandon. More exhausting than actually funny, it could be a grower - this lot have ideas coming out of their armpits.

Keith Watson, Metro, 24th July 2013