It's Summer Heights High

Strictly speaking, the way I was introduced to this was not on telly. For a moment there it was like being one of those morons that proclaims they don't watch TV but have all the special edition DVD's of the Mighty Boosh and Garth Morenghi's Dark Place. My Australian friend stuck it in my face quoting all the best lines so naturally I was intrigued.

Now, I'm finally allowed to discuss it because last night I spotted that episode 2 was on BBC Three. This was lucky as I'd seen episode 1 but the DVD started skipping on episode 2. Another win for TV.

It's a mockumentary based around three central characters all played by the same hilarious individual. A drama queen, drama teacher; an 'islander' deliquent kid; and a bratty posh girl who is involved in an exchange programme between private and public schools.

In this episode the drama teacher Mr. G (he thinks calling himself this makes him cool to the kids) gets to be acting head of drama because the real one's going to be off school for a while. This he takes as his queue for all around dramatic destruction. He insists on being referred to as 'Director of Performing Arts' and forces music teachers and the like to take his lessons for him because he's so excessively busy being 'Director of Performing Arts'.

Jona, the bad kid from the wrong island, gets up to all sorts of mischief that doesn't deserve my reeling it off in an utterly un-comic manner. He's the most quotable, if you can do the voice, and his attempt at breakdancing deserves at least an attempt at imitation, just for the fun of it. He can't read and he doesn't want to, he hates school, he's disruptive and the equally comedy teachers have to deal with it.

This is another tick for Australia; a mockumentary style and the ability to play various characters is akin to the genius of Christopher Guest and though perhaps it's not quite that brilliant (let's face it, that's a pretty steep ladder to climb), it certainly warrants favouritism above a lot of the comedy that's appearing on television. In fact, I can't really remember the last time I truly enjoyed a new comedy except for 'Flight of the Conchords'. Currently, it seems like it's all about the southern hemisphere, the british have no chance unless Matt Berry bites back with an equally dark but painfully comic series of 'Snuff Box'.