Fresh Meat

Charlotte Ritchie: I can see Fresh Meat film happening

The 24-year-old comedy star, who plays Oregon in the hit Channel 4 drama, says she can envisage a film set in Barbados with a generously long filming time...

Radio Times review

As you'd expect from the creators of Peep Show, this university comedy is a cut above - and the third series was the slickest to date. Jack Whitehall was born to play JP, the show's fabulously self-centred posho (he'd prefer "ledge"). Plain-speaking punk Vod - surely the coolest character on TV - revealed her vulnerable side when her mother came to stay, making her badly behaved daughter look like a herbal-tea-quaffing nun. Also vying for the best gags was resident oddball Howard who fell head over heels for their new housemate, culminating in the most delectably awkward first date in the history of awkward first dates.

Fresh Meat, Channel 4 - TV review

The residents of 28 Hartnell Road have just completed the best series yet of the undergrad sitcom.

Since Oregon broke off that Tunisian student's penis mid-sex on Fresh Meat (Channel 4), I've wondered about our immigration policies. Why did he get deported, not her? Tony Roche's unexpectedly tender script for this series last raised another topical question. Aren't open relationships the hellish portals to mutually assured sexageddon?

"You shouldn't be messing with that," counselled Vod when she learned that Kingsley and Josie were that nightmare, an inhouse item in an open relationship. "That's black-belt screw-jitsu." Quite so, but that didn't stop the housemates adhering to Marvin Gaye's most demanding injunction, namely to get it on: Candace and Howard, JP and Josie (kind of) - even Oregon and Vod curled up together at the end after that unpleasantness over the student union presidential election. Where will it all end? "Before you know it, you're blowing a donkey in the car park." Let's hope Vod's wrong about that.

Relationships take centre stage as we bid a fond farewell to our favourite undergraduates for another term. Kingsley and Josie are painfully testing out the boundaries of an open relationship, Oregon and Vod are at odds over the student president election and Howard and Candice are giving each other longing looks - but will either of them pluck up the courage to act on them? That just leaves JP to do his own thing, which in his case means doing heroic amounts of gak and rubbing the neck of his guitar in a decidedly erotic fashion. Oh to be a student again.

This third series of the university comedy has been the slickest yet, although students home for the holidays may want to enjoy this final episode in a separate room from parents who ought to know better. As usual, the best lines go to plain-speaking punk Vod, plummy JP and the house's resident oddball, Howard.

Here the latter pips them to the post thanks to a deliciously awkward first date with Candice. "I have them in case of earthquakes or meteor strikes," he says solemnly, when she exclaims over the romantic candles. "Or local authority mismanagement."

It's like student life. You're thrown together with random strangers. You make friends, laugh like idiots, do bucket bongs and bond during small-hours heart-to-hearts. Then you moan about the washing up, pair up, grow up and drift apart. This third season of Fresh Meat has felt a bit like this process - and not altogether in a good way. It's as if the writers are trying to keep the first-year fun going, rather than accepting that what once was brilliant has now run its course.

JP epitomises this tail-chasing confusion - he's no nearer to understanding himself and in danger of being left behind. Jack Whitehall's character remains the main reason for watching Fresh Meat however: his blend of idiocy, neediness and entitlement is still sporadically hilarious. But we've long since ceased to care about Josie and Kingsley's relationship, so the crisis point they reach in tonight's season finale doesn't pack much of an emotional punch.

Elsewhere, Vod and Oregon break up to make up and Howard and Candice edge closer to a change in relationship status. Can Fresh Meat sustain another series? The performances continue to partially mask the longueurs, but we hope they quit while they're just about ahead.

Fresh Meat's Vod is a cheerleader for girls

Fresh Meat's Vod is a cheerleader for girls getting it on gleefully without being in relationships, or weeping about it afterwards.

Fresh Meat season 4 - what will happen next?

Sam Bain - the co-creator of the Channel 4 comedy - is hoping for another series, but what is next for JP, Vod, Kingsley and co?

Fresh Meat, series 3 finale, review

The third series of Fresh Meat has been an altogether darker affair, culminating in a series finale that was disappointingly short on laughs, says Rupert Hawksley.