Brassic review

Michelle Keegan and Joe Gilgun's new Sky comedy breaks the mould when it comes to mental health.

Joseph Gilgun interview

'In a working-class community, often you're accepted for the oddball you've become'.

What are the cast of 'Misfits' doing now?

Here's a look at what some of those cast members are doing now, just over two years since the show ended...

The sight of nice Rudy lactating is just one of the oddball pleasures to be savoured as the curtain comes down on the orange-boiler-suited community service superpower drama after five inventive and largely joyous seasons. Robert Sheehan, Iwan Rheon, Antonia Thomas and Karla Crome are just four of the young actors to benefit from a career leg-up in this show - and here's hoping it's not long before the comedically gifted current star Joe Gilgun lights up the screen again.

Things get even darker as Misfits hurtles towards the end of its last ever series, with the gang caring for a group of terminally ill patients, one of whom is particularly resilient. Alex the barman, meanwhile, is punished for failing to show his chivalrous side as a Gypsy casts a spell on him. But it's Rudy Two (the good side of his split personality, so expertly played by doom-voiced Joe Gilgun) who's the real highlight, as he pursues the missing superhero from the future-predicting woolly jumper.

Unlike ex-E4 staple Skins, which revived its original cast for its last run, the final incarnation of this offbeat supernatural drama is barely recognisable. In episode four, the gang come across a vulnerable old man with a secret, more is revealed about the mysterious woolly jumper, and Abby implores Alex to use his weird powers to, erm, have sex with a tortoise. Rudy's alter ego Rudy Two comes further out of his shell, with Joe Gilgun giving a split personality performance that's a distraction from all the gratuitous weirdness.

Misfits Series 5 Episode 2 review

Misfits never turns out a bad episode when it puts Joe Gilgun's living embodiment of a Freudian slip, Rudy, at the centre of events.

Be still our beating hearts: it's time for the fifth and final donning of the orange jumpsuits for one of the most original dramas to hit British screens in the past few years. The personnel has changed but the dynamic spark between the super-powered community service group has remained constant, with Matt Stokoe's barman Alex getting a beefier part this time round. But it's Joe Gilgun,terrific as fast-talking Rudy, who has made the show his own.

The final series begins, just before Misfits slides into complete irrelevance. Which is a shame, given how brilliantly funny and imaginative it was at its peak. Now, it resembles a televisual Sugababes, with a rotating cast recycling familiar themes without ever quite recapturing the glory days.

Tonight's opener sees the members of the gang once again turned against each other, this time by a Satanic cult disguised as Scouts, with inveterate bedhopper Alex (Matt Stokoe) finally bedridden after a lung transplant and offered the chance to 'use your cock for good'. The cast are still game - Joe Gilgun's scatalogical idiot savant Rudy remains a superb comic creation - but the ideas are undoubtedly running dry. Let's hope that Thamesmead's finest get a climax worthy of their grubbily storied past.