Fresh Meat deserves a roasting

I had pretty high expectations of Fresh Meat, the new comedy drama about seven students at a Manchester University sharing a house. The show (or at least its first episode) received rave reviews and is from the creators of Peep Show, a programme which can generally guarantee a good laugh.

Of course the biggest draw was the University setting: I generally find comedy dealing with things that I am familiar with far more engaging. Here I found my first disappointment. A good comedy can often make fun of a mundane situation by taking it to extremes but I feel Fresh Meat takes it too far. It feels nothing at all like my student experience, there’s nothing recognisable that could make the show a personally poignant experience. Take, for example, Josie – a kind and innocent dentistry student who sleeps with the thoroughly obnoxious JP as soon as she arrives because she is convinced by her new housemates that this is the sort of thing one does during the first week at University. Or Oregon, who is so at pains to conceal her studious, middle class background – despite none of her friends really caring about it – that she lies about having a car and having done well at school. Or Kingsley, who decides to switch from geology to drama after only a few days to try to get girls and avoid one somewhat annoying lecturer.

Switch from Geology to Drama after three days to get more girls

Of course not everybody will care about this and I guess that some might even find the situations presented somewhat familiar. I’d be the first to admit that I’m hardly the typical student, more like the unsociable and never seen Paul than any of the other characters. As such its only to be expected that I don’t find their problems familiar. Perhaps this makes me unqualified to comment on the show, but I daresay that there are more than a couple people like me at Imperial.

None of this would really matter if the show was at least funny, but it simply isn’t. I can’t really explain it – I just didn’t laugh a lot while watching it. When I did it was mainly from embarrassment at the often puerile jokes. In fact, I found the more ‘dramatic’ elements of the show – like awkward Howard’s attempts to get a date with outgoing Voz – far more interesting.

This is by no means a horrible show and you should probably check out at least one episode to see if it’s your sort of thing – just don’t expect anything brilliant.