Campus

Campus is the spiritual successor to the much loved surreal sitcom, "Green Wing". It stars Andy Nyman as the tyrannical head of a fictional "new build" university.

This is really forgettable, so much so that I didn't think I had seen it until I realised I had already rated it on IMDb. I like Andy Nyman and I think the role of a crazy, scheming professor is a good fit. There's some familiar supporting cast from Green Wing and some stand ups who have gone on to bigger things like Sara Pascoe and Katherine Ryan.

It has the surreal slapstick of green wing, unatutal dialogue in the same vein as writers like Chris Morris and Charlie Brooker albeit not as slick and a fair dose of vulgarity. I liked Green Wing at the time and it felt fresh, but this is just tedious to sit through. The episodes are nearly an hour and where as Green Wing was tightly scripted this just feels underwritten. I know it is semi-improvised, but so is Curb Your Enthusiasm and that has a consistently higher hit rate in 30 minutes.

Unfortunately Campus only lasted one series and a pilot. It may have built a bigger audience and improved had it ran for another series. The other tragedy is the late 00s weren't prolific for sitcoms and by 2011 there was a drought.