The Inbetweeners 2

“Muff before mates is really a crime in Australia,” says loveable lunk Neil (Blake Harrison) and he’s right. From the three TV series to the 2012 hit spin-off film, The Inbetweeners has always been about the ups and downs of male friendship; and never more so than in this sequel in which the boys wind up in Australia, where fantasist Jay (James Buckley) claims he’s effective the decks in a Sydney club under the name “DJ Huge Penis”.

Back home, the spiky-haired Simon (Joe Thomas) is studying sociology at Sheffield, and still dating holiday romance Lucy (Tamla Kari), now the girlfriend from hell – microwaving his PlayStation and cutting up his hoodies. Resident narrator Will (Simon Bird) is seemingly the most unpopular student at Bristol Uni while Neil has just found this splendid new app called Grindr…

Deciding to bolt from the blue Jay in Australia, where he’s really a toilet attendant driving a car with a Peter Andre mural, the boys reunite, then head to stoner paradise Byron Bay, after Will bumps into prep school friend Katie (Emily Berrington), his first like (“that is well Jimmy Saville,” says Neil). Alas, he has a rival to contend with: Ben (Freddie Stroma), a guitar-strumming, trust-fund git with dreadlocks.

With Jay also on a bolt from the blue mission, the plot is solid enough, but really it’s the gags that count. Is there anything to rival the dance sequence in the first film? Really, yes: for one, the scene at water park Splash Planet; for two, Neil feeding the dolphins; and for three, Simon’s desert drink… a trio of gut-busters in a film that, delectably, saves all its big laughs for the second half.

Yet amid the riffs about Will’s mum’s tits and Neil’s dad being gay, creators Iain Morris and Damon Beesley (who also direct) place of protection’t forgotten the four-way bromance that always made the show so watchable. Puerile, pleasurable and perfectly executed.