Now that Skins has finished, and hopefully gone off to give itself a good talking to about the ratio of attention it gives to the bad characters and the good ones, E4 has gone all comedy-obsessed on a Thursday.
The highlight of this new(ish) line-up is, of course, The Inbetweeners. Whereas Skins shows us the lives of the cool kids very few of us ever were, this show features the more normal (i.e. hopelessly inept) teenagers we’ve all known and most of us have been. The first series was an unexpected delight (because it was hindered by the worst trailer in the history of television), and this second series will hopefully continue in the same vein.
For the uninitiated, we follow Will, Simon, Jay and Neil, four schoolboys who must be about 17 (but look older) as they fail at education, romance and life in general. Lovingly observed yet very, very funny, this show is the perfect reminder that the teenage years are not all about hot sex in wardrobes, underground hip-hop gigs and glamourous proms – they are also about insecurity, awkwardness, bumbling about and looking like a tit.
