The Midnight Beast

Review: If I Were A Black Guy was a sole highlight

Sadly, while Stef, Ash and Dru can be hilarious in musical mode, they're no great shakes as comic actors. The first series seemed to know this, building each episode around a key musical moment.

Comedy crooners Dru, Ash and Stef are back for a second series of musical bellendry. Stef is still reeling from his breakup with Zoe - she's now dating Skepta-esque rapper Sexual P, who taunts Stef with blatant braggadocio. With no record deal to speak of, the boys find themselves working at a former bingo hall and organising a 16-year-old's birthday party. With laughs few and far between and dated yoof culture references, it's a subpar opener from the one-time YouTube sensations.

Simon Farnaby: Mighty Boosh showed me how to make TV

Simon Farnaby, 40, was in The Mighty Boosh and Horrible Histories. He returns as a tortoise-loving neighbour in the new series of E4's Midnight Beast.

It's difficult second series time for Stef, Dru and Ash, collectively known as musical mickey-takers The Midnight Beast.

The mix of spot-on pop caricatures and shambolic sitcom is much the same as first time out with one difference: the boys are starting to feel their age.

Have they got their finger on what's cool and what's not any more? As they set about organising a birthday party as a way of earning some readies, the lads suspect they might be losing their touch.

Hanging out with hopeless neighbour Craig (Simon Farnaby, of Horrible Histories and Yonderland fame) isn't helping any.

Radio Times review

As one character remarks about the titular comedy group: "These idiots look like they understand teenagers. I bet they even know how to twerk." One wonders if a similar conversation happened in the E4 offices when they commissioned a second series of this musical sitcom.

Appropriately for a trio most famous for a 2009 parody video (TiK ToK by Ke$ha, remember?), this first episode is filled with references to outdated memes and fads. As the boys try to arrange a birthday party for a teenage girl, they realise they're not quite young enough for the yoof.

Not that the humour's got any more mature. The songs largely miss the mark, but it all builds to a pleasingly crude final gag. Strictly not for grown-ups.

E4's The Midnight Beast began a second series last night. The comedy-pop band of the same name first won fans for their YouTube video parodies of artists such as Ke$ha, before making the leap into this self-titled sitcom in 2012.

It features the band members playing versions of themselves, wacky sub-plots and original music numbers, so unfavourable comparisons to Flight of the Conchords and The Mighty Boosh are inevitable. They are also unfair, because while The Midnight Beast isn't as original as those shows, it's not aimed at the same audience either. Judging by this second series commission, the TMB's teen followers are well satisfied with their TV incarnation.

This episode made a self-deprecating reference to the gang's youth appeal. Having been employed to organise a 16th-birthday party, Stefan, Dru and Ashley tried - and failed - to come up with an appealing teen-friendly theme: "A Twilight party? What do you think I am? Fifteen years old, three years ago?"

There were also many more dud gags besides, but a scene in which Stefan visited a frontman support group almost compensated. Any sitcom that includes roles for both Simon Farnaby from Yonderland and Stella Street's Phil Cornwell, can't be all bad.

Meet the cast of The Midnight Beast: E4's dirty Glee

The idea for comedy music group The Midnight Beast - comprised of Stefan Abingdon, Drew Wakely and Ashley Horne - first started life in a kebab shop.

The Midnight Beast interview

I caught up with the band to ask them all about how The Midnight Beast came to be, and what to expect from the second series.