Fresh Meat

Thank cosmic order for Fresh Meat, almost an hour of laugh-out-loud comic astuteness that single-handedly restored faith in the British ability to be funny. Written by Peep Show combo, Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, who are truly enjoying a beautiful creative moment, it's a student comedy neatly pitched between Peep Show and The Inbetweeners, and is arguably better than both.

Now in its second series, the show works on a multitude of levels. Each character is fully realised and integral to the set-up, the plots are loose but satisfyingly coherent, and the caustically absurd yet uncannily authentic dialogue succeeds in defining its own inspirationally demented world.

In Howard (Greg McHugh), the paranoid Scot, and JP (Jack Whitehall), the smug public schoolboy, the show boasts two of the finest comic creations to come along in years. Whereas the contrast between Sabine, the plain-speaking Dutchwoman (Jelka van Houten), and Me and Mrs Jones's Inca says everything that needs to be known about the difference between fresh and stale.

In last week's second episode, JP had mumps and, advised that he risked infertility, he rashly chose to store his sperm in the student house's shared freezer ice cube tray. Meanwhile the newly arrived Sabine was still getting to grips with the haphazard communal workings of the kitchen.

You might have thought you'd know how or, more precisely, where this particular climax was going to finish. The mark of the best comedy, however, is that it subverts the obvious even while playing it for all it's worth. In the end the payoff was hard to swallow, but only because it left me spluttering so violently with laughter.

Frest Meat review: second year

It has great performances (Nixon's little reactions are sublime), very funny scripts, good plots, excellent direction, and encapsulates the atmosphere of university social life exceptionally well.

The students' thoughts turn to networking, and Kingsley catches the eye of BP executives at a careers fair. Howard's jealous, so decides he needs a new image, the results of which are accurately described by Vod as a "sort of special needs line dancer vibe". Not to be outdone, JP comes up with an idea for a new invention and pays some less fortunate students to work on it. Back at the house, an increasingly potty-mouthed Josie gets annoyed at the amount of time Heather is spending with Kingsley.

Fresh Meat series 2 episode 2 review

Jake finds this week's episode of Fresh Meat an improvement on the first, thanks to a strong cast and decent writing. Here's his review..

The new additions to our freshers' scuzzy house-share come into their own this week. Sabine is the wonderfully square Dutch housemate, a mature student who leaves notes to remind people to clean the grill pan and switch off lights. And Heather appears to be stalking Kingsley, or so paranoid oddball Howard believes. It builds into a splendid episode with just the right mix of character comedy (jealousy, stupidity, rage), farce (JP makes Vod his servant, summoning her with a rape alarm) and downright filth.

The baleful presence of stern new housemate Sabine wreaks inadvertent chaos among her flatmates tonight, courtesy of self-defence classes, cake baking and a shocking confession to tee-totalism that exposes everyone's foibles. 'How do you get off with anyone?' marvels Kingsley. Vod's money troubles force her to take a cleaning job. Howard becomes paranoid after getting mugged for his trainers. JP is bedridden with a mystery illness. By taking problems we've all faced and characters we've all encountered, then pushing them a bit too far (the term 'sex vuvuzela' practically defines the phrase 'so wrong it's right'), Fresh Meat continues to marry sit and com in apparently effortless fashion.

Has Fresh Meat still got student life nailed?

Now in its second series, can the Channel 4 sitcom build on the success of its first year?

Fresh Meat (Channel 4) has clearly eased into a higher gear for its second series. Nothing else on telly is so comically dense: jokes pile up quickly, and you always risk missing something funny by laughing. It's a brilliant mixture of intelligence and idiocy, deploying complex, evolving characters who can still occasionally sum themselves up in one line ("Insufficient funds," says Oregon, staring at a cashpoint screen. "What does that mean?").

The tension has been taken up a notch by the introduction of two new characters: Heather and Sabine. While the housemates we know well become increasingly transparent, these two are freshly opaque. Kingsley, as you might expect, is so keen to believe that Heather is stalking him that he's disappointed when he can't find her anywhere. ("Today," says Oregon, "it's almost like you're stalking her.") But we can't quite discount the possibility that Heather actually is stalking him. We see her largely through his eyes, and she does seem a tiny bit weird.

Howard's recent mugging has the entire household on high alert and misusing their free rape alarms. JP, who's come down with mumps, tries to use his to order soup from downstairs. "I'm sort of being raped by my lack of soup," he says in his defence. Unrepentant, he insists that Vod carry an icetray full of his sperm down to the freezer, in case the mumps make him infertile. I missed what happened next, from laughing.

Meanwhile, Dutch housemate Sabine, who looked set for an unceremonious exit last week, has established herself as an immovable force. As she's utterly straightforward and without guile, no one knows quite what to make of her. "I don't not like her," says Kingsley. "But I also don't like her."

It is a testament to the show's assured execution that the main characters, despite operating only in accordance with their basest motives, all remain extremely endearing. Except, perhaps, the initially sweet-natured Josie, who may be turning into the most calculating housemate of the lot. "I think you're not a nice person," said Sabine, after Josie broke Heather's arm. I found myself thinking the same thing.

Term two trundles on, with Heather increasingly attached to Kingsley, much to the chagrin of BFF Josie. JP is bedridden with mumps, with Vod the only person who can safely care for him. Howard becomes paranoid about household security after getting mugged for his shoes (or maybe just giving them away to three scary but silent hoodies), leading to new housemate/emotion-vacuum Sabine giving self-defence lessons to the girls. As ever, a huge amount packed into the hour, with not a single sub-plot left wanting.

Charlotte Ritchie: one to watch

The hit drama Fresh Meat has created a new star.