Fresh Meat

Plot

The stories revolve around the lives of six students; Vod, Oregon, Josie, Kingsley, JP, and Howard – who are freshers (with the exception of Howard) at the fictional Manchester Medlock University (loosely based on Manchester Metropolitan University). Due to having applied late to accommodation, they live in a shared house off-campus in Whalley Range, Manchester rather than university halls of residence.

Main themes include: Oregon's insecurity and failed relationship with her English literature lecturer, Tony Shales; Vod's hedonistic, carefree lifestyle; Josie and Kingsley's tortured relationship; upper-class JP's attempts at popularity and impressing girls, and Howard's numerous eccentricities. On a larger scale, the series covers such student-related issues as financial issues, work pressures, grades, expulsion, partying, and internship competition. The final series involves job seeking, final exam pressure, and the value of degrees.

Characters

Main

Zawe Ashton as Violet "Vod" Nordstrom: A literature student and military brat, she is studying at the university on an RAF Officer Bursary. Vod appears streetwise, forthright, completely care-free and alludes to having anti-establishment views. She is the life and soul of any party, often drinks too much (a middle aged writer died from consuming the same amount as her) and takes hard drugs. Her university grades are poor and she regularly talks Oregon into allowing her to plagiarize her work. Despite her beliefs, she is fond of Oregon, who is from a privileged background, and helps her through some of her most difficult phases. While she is the first to shirk her workload in favour of a party, we occasionally see her become deeply distressed at the prospect of her work being evaluated, and it is implied that a large part of her apparent ambivalence towards her course can be attributed to a fear of failure coupled with her awareness that she has not received the same level of secondary education as her peers. In the pilot she tells Josie that she didn't study A-levels, and in one of the final episodes she responds to criticism of her ostensibly lackadaisical approach to her studies by pointing out that she had to work extremely hard to be accepted to university, juggling a factory job and an Access course in the evenings. This insecurity is further complicated by her abusive alcoholic mother, Chris, who refers to her as "the millstone around my neck". In the fourth series, it is revealed that she has amassed more than £70,000 of debt over the course of her degree, and her career prospects and ambitions are non-existent. This, however, proves to be the wake-up call she needs, and she puts in extra effort for her final exams, ultimately finishing with upper second-class honours (a "2:1"), a much higher grade than she was expecting. She later agrees to accompany Oregon to Laos.

Greg McHugh as Howard McGregor: A Scottish geology student who is older than the others, having previously done a year in Philosophy but changed courses after disagreements with professors. Howard is eccentric, socially inept and has many strange mannerisms. He is also the only non-freshman in the house, and the only housemate who does not demonstrate even the remotest interest in politics. With the exception of his housemates, he has few friends, but is usually friendly and well mannered. The housemates tend to approach him with caution, and his behaviour has occasionally cost them popularity. He does not socially interact very often, but has had a sexual fling with former housemate Sabine, and took a liking to Sam in the early parts of the third series. In the fifth episode of the third series, he is shown to be somewhat attracted to Candice, and they later form a relationship. His surname changes twice through the series: in series 1, it is Rowbottom; in series 2, it is MacCallum; and in series 3 and 4, it is McGregor. This is due to wanting to remain as anonymous and off the grid as possible, noting that he redacts his middle name from his Ordnance Survey job application, and has wiped his date of birth from the internet – ultimately, it is confirmed in series 4 that Howard's real surname is McGregor. In the fourth series Howard's reclusion worsens, becoming obsessed with studying for his final exams and partly due to breaking up with Candice. He eventually manages to secure a position at Ordnance Survey, despite his fears of living in London. In keeping with his superior intellect to the rest of the group, he is the highest achieving of all, finishing the year with first-class honours ("a one" or "a first"), and being the only one to leave with secure employment. It is revealed in the last episode of the series that he does not actually live in Scotland as he had led everyone to believe, but rather a few streets down from the house where the gang have been living for three years, and he had neglected to tell anyone because his parents embarrassed him. In a deleted scene, it's revealed that Howard later moves in with JP and Kingsley in Chelsea.

Recurring characters

Tony Gardner as Professor Tony Shales – Oregon's charming, somewhat pretentious English lecturer and love interest turned stalker.

Sara Stewart as Professor Jean Shales (series 1–2) – Tony's wife, whom Oregon initially idolises. When she learns of Oregon's affairs with both her husband and son, though, their professional relationship ends.

Jack Fox as Ralph (series 1–3) – an Old Stoic from JP's year, and an acquaintance of his.

Robert Webb as Dan (series 1; guest series 2) – Kingsley, JP and Howard's geology lecturer. He is an inept instructor and overly sensitive about complaints, which makes him seek petty revenge against Kingsley.

James Musgrave as Toby (series 1; guest series 2) – an Old Stoic, and acquaintance of J.P's

Adam Gillen as Brian (series 1) – a nerdy young man who befriends Howard.

Gemma Chan as Ruth (series 1) – a drama student who takes a shine to Kingsley.

Ben McGregor as Dave (series 1) – Josie's boyfriend and fiancé, he is a surly tough guy who marries another woman soon after learning that Josie slept with both JP and Kingsley.

Paul Lamb, "the Invisible Man" (series 1) – an unseen housemate whose presence in (and absence from) the house is barely noticed.

Jelka van Houten as Sabine (series 2–3; guest series 4) – a Dutch PhD student who replaces Paul Lamb as a housemate. Humourless, daunting, and much older than the others, she finds her housemates generally irritating.

Sophie Wu as Heather (series 2–3) – a British Hong Konger dentistry student and friend of Josie's who begins to date Kingsley, causing friction in her friendship with Josie.

Production

Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain created Fresh Meat's characters and wrote the first episode whilst watching The Young Ones on VHS; subsequent episodes were written by other writers. Bain has explained the reasons for this approach: "We always imagined this as a team-written show partly for practical reasons because Peep Show has been recommissioned, and moving forward if we're lucky enough to get another series of Fresh Meat we simply couldn't write two shows at once. So we always knew we wanted to bring other writers on board, some are more experienced, some very talented women writers, and one who had just graduated when we started writing."

Fresh Meat is produced by Liverpool-based Lime Pictures and London-based Objective Productions. The programme was filmed at The Sharp Project in Manchester, a £16.5 million studio facility built to fill the void when Granada Studios closed in 2013. The programme is set in Manchester, and some location scenes are filmed on the campus of the real life Manchester Metropolitan University (close to the River Medlock) – including scenes set within the students' union, which are filmed in the students' union of Manchester Metropolitan University. Scenes in the characters' local pub are filmed at the King's Arms in Salford. Many exterior shots were filmed at the University of Manchester's main Oxford Road campus – particularly outside the library – and in series 2, the University of Salford's library and many exterior parts of the campus were used as a set. 28 Hartnell Avenue, the Victorian house in which the students live, is in fact 28 Mayfield Road in Whalley Range.

Channel 4 announced that a second series had been commissioned in October 2011. Filming was completed in August 2012, and the series started broadcasting that following October. A third series was confirmed via Twitter following the second series' finale.

Filming of Series 4 began in March 2015 and wrapped on 28 May 2015.

Reception

Critical reaction to the first series' opening episodes was mixed, with reviews becoming more positive as the series progressed. The Guardian gave the opening episode a very positive review, finding it "sharp" and "refreshingly gag-dense".

The Independent's review was also positive, saying "what really holds the thing together is an underlying sympathy, the sense that these characters might be comically foolish but they aren't (with some exceptions) contemptible."

However, Michael Deacon in The Daily Telegraph called the opening episode's script "a torrent of prattling self-hatred" and found the episode "drainingly bleak". Rupert Christiansen, also in the Telegraph, was similarly unimpressed, calling it "[p]athetically laboured and over-acted" and "limply written and predictable". Rachel Cooke of New Statesman felt the opening episode was a "damp squib" and commented that this might be because "the writers failed to remember that going to university is also rather melancholic, what with all the loneliness, the strange and soon-to-be-shed new friends and the general exhaustion of trying to act cool and grown-up".

By the end of the first series, the Radio Times said the show had been "full of well-worked plotlines and gorgeous character comedy", and The Daily Telegraph praised "the series' admirable habit of stirring pathos into the flow of gags" as well as complimenting the scripts and performances. The Guardian felt it had "managed to live up to sky-scraping expectations", and Metro said "Originally billed as a university version of The Inbetweeners, Fresh Meat has developed into something much more sophisticated than its more-established sibling."

The second series continued to receive positive reviews, with The Observer declaring the second episode "almost an hour of laugh-out-loud comic astuteness that single-handedly restored faith in the British ability to be funny", while The Independent on Sunday said "First time round, the student sitcom was chipper but clunky fare. But, just as its freshman gang have grown up, so the whole thing has become sharper, wiser, and more lovable".

The third series also continued to receive positive reviews. Andrew Collins of The Guardian identified some similarities between Fresh Meat and The Young Ones, but he suggested that "to say that Fresh Meat is a Young Ones for the Jägerbomb generation does neither show justice" and said "The Young Ones was like being picked up by the lapels and repeatedly shaken. Fresh Meat is more like being invited to stay". Collins also recognised Jack Whitehall's performance as J.P. and refuted Jonathan Ross's quip at the British Comedy Awards that, as an actor, Whitehall has "less range than a North Korean missile", adding that Whitehall's performance deepens with each episode.