The Inbetweeners

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

Will (Simon Bird) is a privately educated, well spoken young man who for reasons beyond his own control is moved to a state comprehensive school, where his middle class mannerisms and appearance gain him a less than warm welcome from the other pupils. However, he soon makes some new 'friends' in the shape of Jay (James Buckley) a rather unpleasant young man with a disturbing obsession with all things sexual, Neil (Blake Harrison) a gormless looking young man whose father displays unfortunate homosexual tendencies and Simon (Joe Thomas) the most well rounded of the trio and their only means of getting around with his 'sh!tty little yellow car', the uncoolest yellow vehicle in a British sitcom since Del Boy's Reliant Robbin. We follow this comically mismatched group around as they stumble from one misadventure to another with hilarious consequences.

It's interesting to note the path British sitcoms have taken in the last thirty years or so, from being the sort of stuff you could comfortably show repeats of on daytime telly nowadays to the alternative comedy that tends to find it's slot late at night on Channel 4. Art imitates life, though, not the other way round, and so this is really just a reflection on changing social attitudes and society in general more than anything. And so we have The Inbetweeners, which hits you like a hammer with it's sheer excessiveness, which, shockingly just makes it even funnier.

It's actually quite a high concept idea of a posh looking/speaking young man and placing him with ordinary looking teenagers of today, and even more subversive to make everything so gratuitous. But clever writing makes this show as much as anything else, coming mainly from Bird's continuous voice overs each episode, where he runs over the pratfalls of everything the group have found themselves in with a great condescending tone. A running trade mark of the show is for him to let rip at the end at how ridiculous or unfair something he has got caught up in is (apart from one where he launches some drunken homophobic abuse at Neil's dad!) as well as to have a recap at the end of each episode on the events that have just gone past where the most hilarious line ('inconsiderate arseholes', 'bumder!', 'will you stop staring at my t!ts?') somehow hits home all the harder.

A relentless onslaught of foul language, crude sexual referencing, cynical cruelty and outrageous indecency, The Inbetweeners is a thoroughly depressing, but well written and very funny, reflection of young people today. Well, some...****

There is nothing original, subtle or profound about The Inbetweeners. In fact, it would rank as one of the most crass, vulgar and shameless comedies that has ever been made, often crossing the line into 'barely acceptable' territory. And this is exactly why I love it. Pure unadulterated indecency has it's place in the world of comedy, and few shows have ever pulled it off quite as well as The Inbetweeners. The combination of a brilliant cast, simple yet brutal writing and a nice middle-class suburban backdrop make for one of the most watchable comedies in the history of UK television. I appreciate it's brevity, at just 18 short episodes, which help preserve its quality and originality. I also like the fact that it came just before the social media explosion of the 2010s, which has allowed it to capture the simpler times before the era of attention-seeking conceited behaviour pervaded teenage culture.

The story revolves around Will, a 6th year student who changes school, and tries to 'fit in' with a bunch of equally geeky types. This series made me laugh out loud several times per episode, which is a rare thing for me. It recaptures all the embarrassing awkwardness of late-teen school, where boys are just preoccupied with self-image, and getting laid. This series is very cleverly written, with lots of painful observations, and excellent characters, brilliantly played. I gave it ten out of ten, as nothing has come close to beating it this year. I would've given it 11, it's THAT good. We eagerly await a second series, and it can't come quick enough.

The Inbetweeners is a breath of fresh air to comedy programs, not over the top stupidity, nor do you have to be at all intellectual to find it funny, the plot revolves around 4 young students entering sixth form and follows there days as your average teenager, its the great mix of characters which makes this worth your time in watching as i'm sure most people can relate to one of the 4, based in the UK the "average" group of friends find them selves in all sorts of awkward, embarrassing and often hilarious moments which all of us would have probably encountered sometime or another in our teen years,I hope to see more of these new actors in the future, this series is just what we needed, a comedy of the new generation.

A couple of mates with similar senses of humour got me into this during the second series and I have gone back and unearthed the first series. Well worth the effort! British comedy is alive and well in the cult shadows! This is hilarious because it represents a comedic image of how tragic most of our lives were as teenagers. It pulls off the awesome trick of being cool whilst proudly boasting central characters who aren't cool. They're not always nice, even. But they ARE true - and you've gotta love 'em for it! Check this out and laugh your nuts off, whilst guiltily hiding the fact that you were either as lovable yet pathetic as the heroes or as cool, snide and, deep-down, insecure as the bullies.