IT’S hard to believe, but Fresh Meat is celebrating its 10th anniversary this weekend.
The hilarious comedy followed the lives of six very different students, Vod, Oregon, Josie, Kingsley, JP and Howard, who were forced to live together off-campus at the fictional Manchester Medlock University.
Created by Peep Show writers Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, Fresh Meat saw the unlikely housemates partying and dating without much studying.
The cast was made up of a mixture of well-known stars, including Jack Whitehall and Inbetweeners star Joe Thomas, and relative newcomers, many of whom have gone on to become very successful.
Since the show ended in 2016 after four series, the six main cast members have landed some big gigs – even cracking Hollywood and enjoying romances with A-list actors.
Here we take a look at where the cast of Fresh Meat are now.
Zawe Ashton – Vod
Vod, played by Zawe Ashton, was a favourite character among fans.
She was more interested in drinking and drugs than actual work, and always seemed to be carefree, until it slowly became apparent she’d actually worked hard to get her uni place, and had a fear of failure.
Since Fresh Meat, Zawe’s career has taken off.
She starred in The Handmaid’s Tale, was the lead character in Netflix horror Velvet Buzzsaw and will be playing a villain in comic book movie The Marvels next year.
Zawe has been dating Hollywood actor Tom Hiddleston since 2019, after they appeared in the London stage show Betrayal together as a married couple.
They’re now living together in Atlanta.
Charlotte Ritchie – Oregon
Literature student Melissa tried to hide the fact she had a privileged background when she started uni, so gave herself the nickname Oregon.
She had an affair with her sleazy lecturer Professor Shales, but was a massive fan of his wife Jean and also started dating their son Dylan.
The political activist became president of the Student Union but ended up being stalked by Shales after dumping him.
Charlotte Ritchie was relatively unknown when she appeared on Fresh Meat, but in 2015, she joined the cast of Call The Midwife as Nurse Barbara Gilbert.
Fans were devastated in 2018 when her character was dramatically killed off when she died of septicaemia caused by meningitis.
Since then, Charlotte has starred in BBC’s hit comedy Ghosts, and also appeared in Netflix’s Feel Good opposite Mae Martin.
Charlotte and Mae have been rumoured to be partners off-screen too, but neither have ever confirmed or denied it.
Kimberley Nixon – Josie
Josie seemed like a very shy Welsh girl, but was actually foul-mouthed and short-tempered.
She was kicked off her dentistry course after turning up drunk and drilling through a patient’s cheek, then moved to zoology before becoming a pharmacology student.
Her on-off relationship with Kingsley, as well as her will-they-won’t-they relationship with JP, were two of Fresh Meat’s main storylines.
Before Fresh Meat, Kimberley Nixon had been in films Wild Child and Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging.
Since the show she’s appeared in Ordinary Lies, Death in Paradise and ITV drama The Salisbury Poisonings.
She also has a young son and a dog, regularly posting cute pictures of both on social media.
Greg McHugh – Howard
Howard was the weird Scottish geology student who Fresh Meat fans adored.
Played by Greg McHugh, he was socially inept and struggled to make friends, but was the only member of the group to leave uni with a job.
After Fresh Meat, Greg teamed up with Jack Whitehall again when he played homeless man Bonehead in the Bad Education Christmas special.
Since then he has played Eddie Scott in The A Word and, more recently, starred in BBC’s Guilt.
Joe Thomas – Kingsley
Joe Thomas was already a household name, having played Simon in the Inbetweeners.
Many argued Kingsley was an older version of Simon due to both characters having choice hairstyles and desperately chasing one girl without much luck.
In real life, Joe appeared in both Inbetweeners movies while filming Fresh Meat – and worked with Will actor Simon Bird again in Sky comedy Chickens.
He also appeared with his Inbetweeners co-star James Buckley in White Gold, so there’s really no getting away from the Simon comparisons.
Clearly a very big fan of his Inbetweeners castmates, he’s been in a relationship with Hannah Tointon, who played Simon’s one-time girlfriend Tara, since they met on the show.
They got engaged in 2017 and are now living together in London.
Gemma Chan – Ruth
Gemma Chan was only in the first series of Fresh Meat and played student Ruth, who took a shine to Kingsley.
She started dating Jack Whitehall in 2011, after they met on set.
Sadly the couple split in 2017 and the following year she started dating Mamma Mia! and Captain America actor Dominic Cooper, whom she now lives with in London.
Since Fresh Meat, Gemma has enjoyed huge success, having starred in major Hollywood films including Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, Crazy Rich Asians and a couple of Marvel films.
She was also one of the 15 women chosen by Meghan Markle to appear on the cover of her guest-edited September 2019 issue of British Vogue.
Sophie Wu – Heather
Heather was Josie’s friend and fellow dentistry student, who ended up dating Kingsley, much to Josie’s disgust.
She and Josie often fought over Kingsley, and in series three, he eventually chose Josie over her.
Prior to starring in Fresh Meat, actress Sophie Wu had been in Hollywood film Kick-Ass, and its sequel.
However, since the show ended, she’s focused more on theatre, and is soon to be starring alongside Emilia Clarke in The Seagull in London’s West End.
She’s also now a mum to a little boy, and is pregnant with her second child.
Jelka van Houten – Sabine
Jelka van Houten joined the cast of Fresh Meat in series two as Sabine, the seventh housemate, replacing Paul – their housemate who never came out of his room, and was never seen on-screen.
Sabine was a Dutch mature student, who didn’t have much in common with the rest of the housemates, and judged them frequently.
Jelka is still acting, although mainly in Dutch films.
She’s also a mum to a toddler and works as a goldsmith, creating little pendants on the side.
Jack Whitehall – JP
Jack Whitehall was easily the best-known cast member when Fresh Meat began.
The already-successful comedian played Jonathan ‘JP’ Pembersley, the posh public schoolboy, who’d failed to get into a ‘proper’ university, and had ended up at the poly instead.
Since Fresh Meat Jack’s travelled round the world with his hilarious dad in Netflix’s Jack Whitehall: Travels with My Father.
He’s also hosted the Brit Awards, the Royal Variety Performance and is a regular on Sky game show A League of Their Own.
And he’s broken Hollywood, having starred in Jungle Cruise with Dwayne Johnson, and, most recently, Clifford the Big Red Dog.
Jack is now in a relationship with model Roxy Horner.
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