Drifters

The girls from The Inbetweeners Movie have swapped adolescent woes for adult awkwardness in this lighthearted not-quite-a-spinoff set in Leeds. Last week's double bill had us enter the world of salesgirls Meg, Laura and Bunny as they struggle with bad sexual encounters, weirdo boss Malcolm and the general awfulness of their post-university existence. In episode three, Meg (Jessica Knappett) lands an internship with a racy radio show, and a nightmare prompts Laura to suspect boyfriend Gary is cheating.

If you're just dipping into this new E4 sitcom, you'd be forgiven for thinking you'd slipped into a parallel universe where people can be only one of three things - stupid, lazy or away with the fairies.

Welcome to the world of Drifters. Newly graduated and just back from traipsing India - as all stereotypical students are wont to do, of course - twentysomethings Meg and Bunny, plus best friend Laura, are struggling to move out of their parents' houses and escape a dull working life. But it's unsurprising, considering that during this third episode alone Bunny simply mopes around, failing to cope with single life, Meg is half-heartedly applying (and lying) for jobs and Laura can't get past the fact that her boyfriend Gary dream-cheated on her.

The characters are unbelievable, a fact emphasised by the flimsy storyline and a serious lack of witticisms for a so-called comedy. It's hard to accept there's a place where the inhabitants resemble Drifters but, if there is, it's not one that should be used for entertainment purposes. Ever.

Dauntingly, Drifters has been billed as the new Girls, a Brit version. Now, new comedies can take a while to get under your skin. I wouldn't say Drifters has got me like scabies - the subject of a running gag - but the crapness of the central trio's lives is well drawn. Bar Infinity looks like it could rival The Office's Chasers for desperate jollity. This is the kind of place where you could be chatted up by some clown who, if he can't get into your knickers, will attempt to get you into a tranket and call on the pretext of modelling. What's a tranket? A travel version of the slanket. What's a slanket? A blanket with sleeves. Yes, tiny, rubbish dreams live and die here.

Two of the Drifters have drifted back from a gap year, while the third has been having boyfriend problems. "I hate the idea that I'm not dirty enough for him," she tells the others. One reassures: "You don't have to worry about that, you're absolutely filthy." The other confirms: "Mate, you're a total dirtbag."

Gags from the girls: Jessica Knappett

Jessica Knappett would like to make one thing clear - the E4 sitcom Drifters she has written and stars in is categorically not a spin-off of The Inbetweeners.

Drifters review

It's this imbalance between Inbetweeners-style farce and a more natural observational comedy that makes it hard for Drifters to really find its own identity.

All hail The Female Inbetweeners. There's lots to like here: sharp one-liners, the right level of smut and warm female friendships, centred on getting drunk and mocking each other. Episode one sets it up: chief drifter Meg (Jessica Knappett) returns from India and plans to live at home with her parents (Bob Mortimer and Arabella Weir) until she gets "a cool, arty, media-y job". In the second episode, the girls gatecrash a wake and rename the walk of shame the "stride of pride". Lovely and funny.

If you change your Facebook relationship status to single, then obviously you've split up, haven't you? Not necessarily. When 24-year-old graduate Meg returns from a six-month bungee-jumping jolly - sorry, cultural educational experience - around India, she realises the message didn't get through to her creepy love-struck boyfriend. So as this six-part comedy series, written by and starring Jessica Knappett (The Inbetweeners Movie) opens, Meg's got her work cut out shaking off the ex while flirting her way into a new job.

Drifters: Jessica Knappett on her new show

Knappett is ambivalent about the resemblances. "There are similarities [to The Inbetweeners], in that we're a group of friends in a hinterland period of our lives," she ventures.

Radio Times review

Teenagers and parents who ought to know better will recognise Jessica Knappett as Neil's klutzy love interest in The Inbetweeners Movie. She had a helping hand from Damon Beesley and Iain Morris - the comic brains behind that incorrigible foursome - when writing this. It's basically a female Inbetweeners, except this time our hapless heroines are also old enough to know better: three 20-somethings fresh from university and struggling to find their feet, never mind their rent. This opening double bill doesn't quite deliver. Yes, it's impudently indecorous but these ladies are too two-dimensional. Look out for Bob Mortimer as Knappett's long-suffering father.

The new Girls? A female Inbetweeners? Both lazy labels, both lazily applied to this new female-led comedy written by and starring Jessica Knappett. The similarities are insultingly superficial - young, independent women living it large, albeit in Leeds. At least on the basis of this opening double bill, Drifters isn't yet in the same league.

'Yet', because there is real promise, especially in a second episode (at 9.30pm) featuring a bad date of oysters, profanity and, later, an attack of scabies. But the opener, as two friends return from travelling 'the whole way round some of India' to a muted welcome, is sluggish and the lead characters Laura (brassy, slutty), Bunny (dreamy, gullible) and Meg (the relatively sensible one) are sketchily drawn. Too many of the jokes are reliant on easy 'girls behaving badly' tropes rather than anything harder to execute, but there's no faulting the enthusiasm or energy with which it's carried out.