Best British TV comedies of the last 15 years

Den of Geek's contributors and readers choose the best of the best British TV comedies from the past 15 years.

Fresh Meat at 10

A decade on from freshers, TV's top students remember their raucous heyday. "We were basically dirty, smelly Friends".

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The beauty of British comedy is how fleeting it is. The US version of The Office dragged on into nine interminable seasons. The British original? Fourteen episodes and done.

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The Thick Of It is the highest rated British comedy in fourth place. Also listed: The Office (6), Fleabag (8), Peep Show (9), Nighty Night (16), Black Mirror (23), Spaced (29), Catastrophe (34), Brass Eye (37), Detectorists (38), Nathan Barley (47), Black Books (53), Inside No. 9 (66), Shameless (70), The Inbetweeners (74), Gavin and Stacey (81), Fresh Meat (86), Garth Marenghi's Darkplace (92), The Trip (95) and The Mighty Boosh (98).

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As usual, these six episodes were wince-inducingly familiar for anyone who's every sat through a terrible job interview, thrown a half-arsed party or embarked on an ill-advised relationship, touched with moments of real pathos as the gang said one final farewell to their student home.

Saying goodbye to our favourite students from Manchester Medlock University was always going to be hard but we felt that writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong did an admirable job in wrapping up the stories of Fresh Meat's six primary characters. What Bain and Armstrong did particularly well in our opinion was to capture that feeling of doubt about what's next to come after uni but did in a way that was both funny and touching. The characters all had their own separate stories whether it be Kingsley's affair with an older woman, Vod's struggle with crippling debt or Oregon's reign of terror at the student union. But it was when the characters all came together that Fresh Meat shone the most which was best exemplified when the housemates were all trapped in their cellar as their abode was ransacked. Overall we felt that Fresh Meat was given a fitting conclusion and gave all six characters a great send-off.

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We say a fond farewell and rather a sad goodbye to the students of Manchester Medlock University in the final episode of Fresh Meat. As a massive fan of all four series of the comedy drama I was hoping for a satisfying finale and thankfully I wasn't disappointed. The episode started with all of the gang, bar second year Josie (Kimberley Nixon), learning their final grades for their course. Most got what they were expecting with the exception of Vod (Zawe Ashton) who achieved a 2:1 and Oregon (Charlotte Ritchie) who got a 2:2 despite her feeling that she deserved a better grade. There was also good news for Howard (Greg McHugh) as he achieved his dream of a first and a job at Ordnance Survey however he briefly believed that all of his housemates would be coming with him. Luckily after working at Vod's graduation ball, which was moved to their house, Howard acquired the social skills he needed to live with other people. Elsewhere Josie finally realised that she had feelings for JP (Jack Whitehall) especially after he finally stood up to his brother and rejected an offer of the job at his bank. Instead JP hoped to live his dream of being an estate agent and if he was really being able to drive one of those minis. I do feel that everybody pretty much got what they deserved and the extra scene that was available online saw all of the boys living together whilst Vod and Oregon were in Laos researching the latter's novel. I did worry that writer Tony Roche would have a lot to get through but I think he gave each character an equal amount of time however I felt that this final episode deserved a little more than fifty minutes to wrap everything up. As is always the way with Fresh Meat, the comic moments were incorporated with elements of drama such as JP standing up to Tomothy and Oregon finally revealing her true self to her parents. My favourite revelation of this final episode had to be the fact that Howard actually lived two streets away from the share house and that his annoying parents kept trying to invite the rest of the gang round. Overall I feel that all six of the cast members have benefited from their time on Fresh Meat and most have already gone on to bigger and better things. So while I've enjoyed spending time with the gang over the past four and bit years I feel it's best that we never return to see what these characters are up to again as it would spoil for what has been in my opinion an almost perfect series.