Getting the Bird

SIMON BIRD is a few years older than nerdy schoolboy Will McKenzie, whom he plays in E4’s comedy The Inbetweeners, but finds that putting on a school uniform helps him get back into the hormonefuelled mindset.

“You’d be amazed how quickly you revert to old habits,” says the 24-year-old.

“I felt like a teenager again immediately.

And filming was quite similar to school as well in that we’re all quite young compared to the crew, and you’ve got people shouting at you to move onto the next scene and to learn your lines.”

The Inbetweeners, back for a second series on E4, revolves around the embarrassing escapades and mishaps of teenagers Will, Simon, Jay and Neil, and their desperate attempts to chat up girls and join the cool crowd at Rudge Park Comprehensive School.

Although the series was nominated for two gongs at the 2008 British Comedy Awards, the lads’ arrival on the red carpet couldn’t have been worse timed.

Bird’s co-star Joe Thomas described them walking in “like four urchins behind Alec Baldwin”. Bird agrees it was the worst posible timing.

“I think Alec was the biggest star that night. He arrived literally about four seconds before us and people were going crazy and light bulbs were flashing. Then we walked out and everything stopped.”

But the night proved a huge success, with The Inbetweeners winning best new comedy and Bird taking the best male newcomer award.

This second series follows the lads on work experience, when a mix-up sees Will working at a garage. He thinks he’s “too clever” for such work and gets thrown in a pond in nothing but his underpants.

“The pond scene wasn’t so much embarrassing as a horrible experience,” Bird recalls.

“First and foremost it was freezing cold, but also the pond was disgusting. It had this black, filmy skin on it. They even had some divers go in and clear the area beforehand. They dragged out shopping trolleys and rusty metal spikes.”

His own teenage years were even more desperate than Will’s, he says. “Trying to get into the cool kids’ party and trying to get in the pub, I tried and failed the same as Will. I actually went to an all-boys school, so my attempts to get women were even more of an failure because we only saw them once every few weeks.”

Bird studied at Cambridge, where he met co-star Joe Thomas and the pair wrote sketches for the Cambridge Footlights.

He and Thomas continue to write their own material for TV – which Bird describes as “a little less X-rated and potentially offensive than The Inbetweeners”.

Britain’s Homecare Scandal: A Panorama Special (BBC1, 9pm)

IN her new Government-appointed role of the Voice of Older People, Joan Bakewell is keen to see care for our increasingly elderly population improve.

However, as journalist Paul Kenyon discovers, the broadcaster has a massive hill to climb.

With the NHS in crisis, the economy in freefall and a lack of affordable care for the elderly, the situation has never looked more bleak.

Now, in an undercover investigation, Kenyon reveals the shocking state of the care system for pensioners, lifting the lid on a world of neglect, poor management and disorganisation.

The Millionaire and the Murder Mansion (C4, 9pm)

THIS Cutting Edge documentary looks back to the events of last August, when the Shropshire mansion of millionaire businessman Christopher Foster went up in flames. As the police and fire crews moved in, it became clear this was no ordinary fire.

It transpired Foster had killed his wife, Jill, and daughter, Kirstie, before setting fire to his home and taking his own life.

The programme follows the painstaking police investigation. Close friends and relatives of the family also offer their thoughts, painting a disturbing picture of the events which prompted Foster to take such drastic action.