Fresh Meat

Fresh Meat set to be turned into a movie

Student sitcom Fresh Meat is getting its own big-screen release.

The British Comedy Awards dared to ignore our favourite student sitcom: the jury deserve to have their cheeks drilled through by a hungover dentistry undergrad forthwith. Series two was rich with spiky one-liners and involving story arcs. Into the former category falls JP (Jack Whitehall) in his sick bed with mumps, deploying a rape alarm to summon soup and justifying himself with: "I am sort of being raped by my lack of soup." The storyline award goes to Oregon falling for the son of the lecturer she slept with - and working for his wife.

If Peep Show has settled into a groove, Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong's other hit, Fresh Meat, has come of age with the end of its second run. First time round, the student sitcom was chipper but clunky fare. But, just as its fresher gang have grown up, so the whole thing has become sharper, wiser, and more lovable. Now here's hoping it doesn't mirror the classic uni trajectory too closely and succumb to a third year of soft drinks and solipsism.

Thank goodness for Fresh Meat, where the whole Prof Shales-Oregon-his son love triangle finally combusted, with the setting of a literary garden party ensuring this was as excruciating as we dared hope.

I was underwhelmed by the start to the second run and unconvinced the whole way through by the additions to the student house, Heather and Sabine, who only seemed to be there to disapprove of the original six, a wholly unnecessary function given we already know how juvenile, berkish, slovenly and psychotic they could be, and how much we enjoyed that. They would not be denied, though, and there have been many priceless moments in this run, not least the Bullingdon Club-style initiation ceremony where JP was required to smoke a "pipe of pubes".

Just before his world collapsed, Shales tried to move Oregon to another uni, suggesting York and offering to find a place for the equally troublesome Vod as well. "There's a rail museum," he said, to which Vod replied: "You're a rail museum." It's not all about the yoof. Fresh Meat wouldn't be as funny as it is if the lecturers weren't lecherous, cynical, vain, bitchy and pretentious, just like The History Man's Howard Kirk - although Kirk reckoned he was cool and Shales, played by Tony Gard­ner, will never be that. (By the way, that's two mentions in consecutive weeks for Gardner; I assume the cheque's in the post).

Where does the show go from here? At the end, there was a touching speech from JP: "Dad's dead, Mum's sold up, I've been deserted by all my friends in purple trousers and, yah, when I first met you guys I thought you were a bunch of freaks, losers and pinheads - but I need you." By the natural order of undergraduate life some should drop out, but let's hope Howard stays. The very first scene where Greg McHugh turned a hair dryer on Peking ducks strung up on a kitchen pulley while wearing a Killing jumper and nothing on his bottom half was one of the all-time great entrances by a Scotsman. "Sorry," he said, "but I've got used to wearing trousers of the mind."

Fresh Meat series 2 finale review

The recently announced third series will have to up its game considerably if Fresh Meat is to last further beyond that. What's sorely needed is an experienced head writer to take charge and iron out the kinks and unnecessary plots.

TV Ratings: Fresh Meat Series 2 goes out with a whimper

The second series of Fresh Meat came to an end with a modest audience last night (Tuesday, November 27). The Channel 4 sitcom, which has apparently been recommissioned for a third series, sank to 781,000 and a share of 4.2% at 10pm, adding 170k on +1.

With the exams over and the end of the series nigh, our beloved students are all over the shop. As JP struggles to hold the house together, Vod is living off the last words of John Frobisher (the world-famous poet she sort of killed), Howard (Greg McHugh) gets over Sabine with a baby pig (no, not like that) and Kingsley and Josie, well, we could see where that was going. But it's Oregon who's in the biggest fix: father-and-son love triangles never work out. Hurry back for series three, guys.

I won't hear a word against this series of Fresh Meat. It has blended rich performances with fizzing scripts so that even the odd slow patch (that episode at JP's country house?) has parts to treasure. It has, in short, been a blast, and it ends tonight with a suitably nuts swansong.

The house-share is splitting apart. JP is fighting to prevent it, buying giant TVs and hot tubs, but it's a losing battle. Howard is still lovelorn over Sabine in his own strange way, and Vod is flogging literary titbits to Shales. But it's Oregon who is in the worst mess (Dylan still doesn't know about her and his dad), a mess that explodes brilliantly over a literary garden party.

The final episode of this series certainly goes out with a bang. With the end of the academic year fast-approaching, JP is desperate to keep the flat together despite various forces working against him. With Kingsley, Heather and Josie in their palpably awkward love triangle, Oregon keeping a huge secret from Dylan and Howard receiving some surprising news from Sabine, the future is far from certain. With secrets to come out, relationships to resolve and decisions to make, there's plenty of room for the show to exercise its comedy muscle, and it does so with aplomb. After a slightly slow start, it soon gathers pace, and the denouement is frantic and, at times, sensational. Fresh Meat has been that rarest thing: a comedy-drama that succeeds on both counts.

Fresh Meat hasn't enjoyed anything like the ratings it deserves, perhaps because its target audience is more likely to be watching it on catchup on 4oD on their laptops instead of on their TVs. But, if this is the last we see of Fresh Meat, I'll miss all of them as much as I would my own friends.

Especially Vod, who could perform an entire stand-up routine using just her eyes. Her costumes alone are worth tuning in for and tonight is no exception as she reinvents herself as a poet.

Meanwhile, Kingsley and hipster girlfriend Heather have found a new flat, Howard has adopted a pig and Oregon is hoping to go ­travelling with her new boyfriend Dylan - ideally before he can find out she had an affair with his father. As for dental disaster Josie, her final day is going to be a ­memorable one.