The Inbetweeners

Series 3 of The Inbetweeners review

It's a new series of The Inbetweeners that continues with the same puerile, schoolboy humour that won't win over a new audience. Fans, like me, will enjoy it.

The Inbetweeners review

It takes an awful lot to make me laugh hysterically to the point at which my stomach hurts - particularly on a Monday - but the sight of Simon (Joe Thomas) unwittingly displaying his left testicle while modelling at the sixth-form fashion show did just that.

Forget sophisticated one-liners worthy of Oscar Wilde; sometimes all it takes is a stray testicle to have me hooting like a naughty schoolboy. As Simon paraded up and down the catwalk, blissfully oblivious to his peripatetic genitalia, it was all I could do to prevent a groin-related malfunction of my own.

Praise be to the gods of smutty adolescent humour. The Inbetweeners are back. Anyone worried (and I was a bit) that success might have gone to their heads and made the Bafta-winning Inbetweeners come over all poncey and knowing was immediately reassured by the opening line. 'Mornin' benders, jump in the...' - sorry that's one of the zillion lines unprintable in a morning newspaper - tootled the permanently priapic Jay with a squeeze of his (car's) horn. And we were off, rushing back to schooldays stained with lust and embarrassment.

The Inbetweeners works because, aside from the potty-mouthed filth, this is who we were at school. Everyone has the Inbetweener they used to be but the new series has thrown me a bit. I used to think I was Simon but I'm not sure there was anyone I ever fancied enough to wear Speedos in a school fashion show for. Which tragically leaves me as Will, the briefcase of the bunch.

Will railed against the fashion show as a parade of 'the self-elected attractive people'. He's a boy of firm principles, prepared to fight to the end for what he believes in. Well, not to the end, exactly. More to when he gets a hint that someone might fancy him. Then the principles take a 1970s disco shimmy down the catwalk.

Watching Will gyrate with hideous intensity next to his lusted-after Charlotte was to feel the true meaning of squirm. Lucky for him that Simon topped that for excruciating self-exposure. Joe Thomas deserves a big hand for throwing himself into the part because it was a hairy moment if ever there was one.

The Inbetweeners Series 3 review

Five more episodes of pure hilarity still to come and a movie on the horizon, all feels well. Don't go out Monday nights folks - or should I say bus wankers!

The Inbetweeners receives rave Twitter reviews

The boys have caused a stir on Twitter, with thousands of viewers voicing their opinions about Will, Jay, Neil and Simon's wayward testicle.

Let's be honest, there are a couple of things The Inbetweeners could totally afford to lose: chunks of that landfill indie soundtrack and Simon Bird's largely redundant voiceover, for instance. Apart from these minor grumbles, however, it's clearly one of the most accurately observed, snort-like-a-pig comedies around. Series three also signals the start of a new term, and what better way to kick off than with a school fashion show for charity, with all the potential for utter wrongness that suggests. Those who'd rather not see more of actor Joe Thomas than strictly necessary, avert your gaze now.

Expect fresh humiliation and filthy gags aplenty as the Bafta-winning sitcom returns for a third series. Overgrown adolescents Will, Simon, Neil and Jay are now in Upper Sixth and as brilliantly puerile as ever. On the first day of term, Jay screeches up in his new wheels - his mum's - sporting a freshly pierced ear (cue the inevitable gay jokes), convinced that he'll be asked to model in the school charity fashion show. He isn't. It's a lucky escape: uber-nerd Will is soon on the catwalk throwing 70s moves in waistcoat and skinny jeans. But it's Si who really comes a cropper after comely Carli persuades him to don a skimpy pair of Speedos...

In between The Inbetweeners

Displaced teenagers Simon, Will, Neil and Jay are heading back to school, where they face a final year of humiliation, social exclusion and female rejection.

A welcome return for the award-winning series about the shenanigans of four misfit, uncool teenagers as they negotiate sixth form. This terrific series has been marked by its witty adolescent humour and sharp and engaging observation. As we return, a school fashion show is being organised and Will (Simon Bird) and Simon (Joe Thomas) get involved - but not in a good way.