Fresh Meat could return says star Greg McHugh: “I’d love to do a film!”
“If they came to me and said ‘we want to do a one-off special’, I’d bite their hand off”
Fresh Meat finished earlier this week, and it’s safe to say fans of the hit student comedy were bereft. How would we carry on without the university-based hijinks of Howard, Josie, JP, Kingsley, Vod and Oregon as they left uni forever? Will we ever see them pay off their student debts and make it in the real world?
It's a tough time for us all – but fans shouldn’t lose hope just yet, because series star Greg McHugh (who played Scottish loner Howard) says he can’t see anything getting in the way of a reunion at a later date.
“You know what? I think any opportunity for us to work, all of us together again, we’d all do it,” he told RadioTimes.com.
“I certainly wouldn’t say ‘no’ or ‘I’m never gonna do that again’. I loved that experience. I love the people in it. I love the writers. Everything about that show is really special.
“If they came to me and said ‘oh in five years time we want to do a one-off special, could you do it?’, I’d bite their hand off. Absolutely.”
And if the gang were to return on the big screen for a movie spin-off (as has been hinted at in the past), McHugh says he’d be even keener to be back in the fold.
“I’d love to do a film!” he said. “I mean I don’t know what you’d do with a film of them.
“Maybe Vod gets stuck in South America and we have to go and rescue her.
“I mean, get paid to do more of that and hang out with people I like? Yeah, absolutely.”
In other words, it sounds like there’s hope yet for the Hartnell crew – though McHugh says such a return won’t come any time soon. For now, the actor says he’s keen to play characters significantly different to Howard, whether it’s his current role in autistic drama The A Word, an upcoming stage version of his own comic creation Gary: Tank Commander (more details here) or his latest film Kicking Off, where he plays a man who kidnaps a football referee (see trailer above).
“Once I started doing Fresh Meat I’d get scripts through, and sometimes they were quite similar to Howard,” McHugh recalled.
“The weirdo – but frankly not as well written as Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong’s work, and the other writers.
“Plus, once you’ve done Fresh Meat, you have to take a step away from that world.
“But yeah it was a very conscious decision, and I’m lucky that I’ve got other jobs that can show me in a different light."
Sounds like a good idea – and if there's one thing Greg McHugh knows about, it's keeping it fresh.
Kicking Off opens in cinemas on 21st April, and On Demand and DVD from 25th April
Authors
Huw Fullerton is a Commissioning Editor for Radio Times magazine, covering Entertainment, Comedy and Specialist Drama.
