Drifters

Episodes one and two
The new ‘Girls’? A female ‘Inbetweeners’? Both lazy labels, both lazily applied to this new female-led comedy written by and starring Jessica Knappett. The similarities are insultingly superficial – young, independent women living it large, albeit in Leeds. At least on the basis of this opening double bill, ‘Drifters’ isn’t yet in the same league.

‘Yet’, because there is real promise, especially in a second episode (at 9.30pm) featuring a bad date of oysters, profanity and, later, an attack of scabies. But the opener, as two friends return from travelling ‘the whole way round some of India’ to a muted welcome, is sluggish and the lead characters Laura (brassy, slutty), Bunny (dreamy, gullible) and Meg (the relatively sensible one) are sketchily drawn. Too many of the jokes are reliant on easy ‘girls behaving badly’ tropes rather than anything harder to execute, but there’s no faulting the enthusiasm or energy with which it’s carried out.