Fresh Meat, Channel 4’s latest offering from Peep Show creators Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, kicks off with a generous serving of blunders, bragging and mortification as six Manchester University freshers descend on the house they are to share with one another.

Freshers’ first meetings are known to be nerve-wracking experiences but the introductions between such a motley crew of people as wild-girl Vod (Zawe Ashton), strange Howard (Greg McHugh), small-town Josie (Kimberley Nixon), monumentally insecure Oregon (Charlotte Ritchie), insular Kingsley (Joe Thomas, aka Simon from The Inbetweeners) and tortured toff JP (Jack Whitehall) resemble collisions more than social interactions, with Vod seeing a bit more of Howard than either of them may have wished for on a first meeting, small-town Josie getting her fair share of patronising from worldlier – or would-be worldlier – quarters, and JP offending right and left with his venture-capitalist ways and fondness for compound words, specifically ‘motherfucking’ .

All the main characters are sharply defined from each other, essential as there are six of them, and they seem well-cast, though so far there has been a lot of reliance on frowning to suggest dismay at the silly things you come out with when you’re trying to impress new people. Two characters who don’t have this tic are Howard, who is too strange to realise how bizarre some of his remarks are, and JP, who looks more panicky than dismayed when he says something he thinks is silly and is usually likely to follow up a clumsy comment with a seriously rude one.

The tension mounts when a one-night stand threatens to become more complicated than either party anticipated after they find out they are housemates and we can expect more combustion in the weeks to come between JP and all those he hasn’t yet offended. Meanwhile, would-be streetwise Oregon gets the edge of her new teacher Professor Shales’ (Tony Gardner) tongue after she criticises his nonchalant attitude to their personal statements. ‘Head-girl’s got her vibe on,’ is his mocking response to her outspokenness.

As you’d expect from the writers of Peep Show, Fresh Meat has some brilliant lines and, wisely, it gives the best of them to the two characters who might otherwise be the least likeable: loner Howard – ‘used to wearing trousers of the mind’ as he says when explaining his semi-naturist tendencies to Vod, who warns Kingsley after he pulls a hot girl that ‘your kidneys are going on eBay, pal. She’s gonna eat you and not in a good way,’ – and seasoned misogynist JP.  ‘Let’s do lunch, get a motherfucking baked potato,’ and ‘It’s a nice sheet. High motherfucking thread count eh?’ are some of the things this character comes out with in his more nervous moments.

The already-snappy pacing is moved along even faster by jump-cuts and a street soundtrack that comically emphasises how students must scheme and struggle to get the most out of life on a budget, in Howard’s case even going so far as to beg one-twentieth of people’s pints in a pub or ask if he can ‘suck on your teat’.

Plus there is sexual tension between two of the characters to liven up the narrative and the episode is broken up into ten-minute sections marked by iconic images of a student house-share, including potatoes with green sprouts growing out of the ends and a bathroom sink bird-stooled with tracks of toothpaste.

With its witty lines, engaging characters and multiple plot lines, Fresh Meat promises to be a lively, younger follow-up to Peep Show.

Aired at 10pm on Wednesday 21st September 2011 on Channel 4.

> Order the Series 1 DVD on Amazon.

What did you think of the episode? Let us know below…