Big Boys | Preview (Channel 4)

Jack Rooke's silly, sweet comedy about two boys from very different ends of the 'spectrum of masculinity' who become best mates at Brent Uni freshers' week 2013.

Nineteen-year-old Jack (Dylan Llewellyn) is a dweeby, sheltered, closeted boy from Watford, trying to overcome his grief after his dad's passing and figure out what he wants in life.

He leaves behind his potty-mouthed mum Peggy (Camille Coduri), who has persuaded him to take up a scholarship at the local uni so that he can make something of himself and not just be stuck at home, masturbating and knitting blankets to sell on Etsy.

Meanwhile, 25-year-old Danny (Jon Pointing) is your typical loud-and-proud lads' lad. Hailing from a run-down seaside town, Danny is a few years older than every other fresher, trying to live out a lost adolescence while confronting the demons of his mental health.

Living in an ex-classroom shed on campus, the boys are thrown together by the enigmatic Jules (Katy Wix), the head of the SU who was a student herself a decade ago and has just never left. They soon meet Corinne (Izuka Hoyle), a sharp, study-centric Scot who's learning to let her hair down, and Yemi (Olisa Odele), the savvy fashion kid who, at 19, has already seen it all, done it all and begrudgingly guides this gang of misfits through freshers and beyond.

And so we follow their first year at Brent Uni as they explore, experiment and try to discover themselves, helping one another along the way. Narrated by comedian Jack Rooke, Big Boys is based on his award-winning live Edinburgh Fringe shows Good Grief, Happy Hour and Love Letters.

In the first episode, with a newly dead dad and a bad perm, shy closeted teen Jack is finally leaving his potty-mouthed mum Peggy for a journalism degree at Brent Uni. Paired up to live in a campus outbuilding with mature student and lads' lad Danny, these two mismatched freshers go on their first big night out.

Big Boys begins Thursday 26th May at 10pm on Channel 4.