Not quite Fresh Meat

Freshers – you’ve got to love them. Nervously wandering around campus, gazing blankly forth with their hopeful, stupid eyes, yelping excitedly in the Copper Rooms. Happily hapless, you could just about go up to one and kill them with a rolled up newspaper. Not that you would, of course, although this might be a good time to point out that this very publication is printed on some of the Midlands’ most enduring paper.

Television loves them too; so much, in fact that it’s produced a sitcom dedicated to unpicking the diverse and hilarious experience of fresherdom. Unfortunately, though, it’s difficult not to approach _Fresh Meat_ (C4) with a slightly schizophrenic perspective. On the one hand, the show spills from the esteemed pens of _Peep Show_-men Armstrong and Bains, whose presence and influence it trumpets with all the reserve of an alcoholic bugler going through a messy divorce. On the other, it was launched with a slavish promo in The Guardian’s Guide, a sure-fire guarantee of over-hyped mediocrity. On the one hand, it features another compelling comic cameo from Tony Gardner (_Lead Balloon_, etc), arguably TV’s most talented portrayer of quiet, desperate insanity. On the other, it doesn’t so much feature as suffer from a severe case of Jack Whitehall, arguably TV’s most talented bellower of bland observations and other people’s jokes (allegedly).

However, the real flaw in _Fresh Meat_ is the same simple one that afflicts the vast majority of C4’s comedy output – too little identity, too few laughs. Annoyingly, though his presence on screen will eventually cause your eyes to bleed and soul to rust, Whitehall delivers probably the show’s best or, at least, most noticeable performance as obnoxious, preening narcissist JP. Essentially, he’s playing himself with a few traces subtly ripped off from the ‘Gap Yah’ phenomenon.

The rest of the cast resemble hollowed-out versions of recent popular comedy archetypes, own-brand knock-offs sapped of flavour and vitality. Aside from Whitehall’s public school buffoon, the show is centred upon the relationship between Joe “Everyman” Thomas – replaying his role from The Inbetweeners – and a simpering Welsh haircut who may well be repossessed by the producers of _Gavin and Stacey_ before the end of the series.

Filling out the cast are a weirdo with an accent, an alternate universe Jessica Stevenson and gruff tearaway, Vod, apparently designed to be a female Super Hans. However, this attempted character transplant is largely unsuccessful; instead of an amoral hipster psychopath, she’s merely a bit of a hostile tosser. Where Super Hans would, say, liven up a party with a bespoke snake, Vod might maybe plagiarise an essay. Or steal a pen from Barclay’s. Or tip less than the culturally mandated ten percent. Comic nihilism is considerably less funny when shorn of any glee or imagination.

This isn’t to denigrate the show (and thus contradict the little advisory roster at the bottom of the page); Fresh Meat is hardly a travesty. There are a couple of good lines each episode, an occasional flash of _Peep Show_’s dark wit, but it all feels familiarly complacent, and, at an hour’s running time, a lengthy trawl rather than a shot of surreal joy. In fact, instead of its supposed 18-25 audience, it actually seems perfectly pitched for the anxious parents of new undergraduates: reassuringly benign with just enough edge for a vicarious thrill. Real students: if you’re doing anything right at all, you can probably live a more amusing university sitcom yourselves.