Being Human: A Bit Jacob's Creek-y For Me

Do the History Boys have the careers they currently enjoy because of their former History Boy status, or are they so naturally talented it would have happened anyway?

I saw the play a few times, and each time was completely taken by Jamie Parker. He was entrancing. Hypnotisingly good. Enchanting. I was hugely moved by Russell Tovey too. I was profoundly irritated by Dominic Cooper, who I still think is vastly overrated. And I recall James Corden as being quite funny.

In the film, Jamie Parker got woefully short-changed in favour of Dominic Cooper, who has since applied his limited talents to such fare as Jane Austen and Abba, the twin titanics of the contemporary British film industry. I'm convinced his career is entirely based on "The History Boys", considering that he isn't that great-looking nor that great-acting. Jamie Parker re-emerged in the superb production of The Revenger's Tragedy at the National, and, in a slight change of pace, "Valkyrie". I still love him. He simply fills the theatre. If he doesn't become a huge name (and time is running out) there is no justice. He is such a talent.

Meanwhile, on BBC3, James Corden is now king of the comedy castle, and now Russell Tovey has shaken off the Little Dorrit clasp of somnolence to lend Being Human a bit of dramatic clout. Well, not really dramatic clout. Name and face recognition, maybe. He's playing a sensitive werewolf, alongside a tall, dark and handsome vampire and a pretty but dim ghost in a wonderfully quirky house that is a true find for the location manager, who I applaud. Being Human is ever so slightly too obvious - and, like a lot of BBC3 stuff, cooler-than-thou - the aim is so squarely at 20-somethings that it's liked being locked onto by a missile. 20-somethings are capable of registering things beyond their immediate experience, despite what the head honchos at BBC3 think, who constantly underestimated their audience by assuming "youth" means "special educational needs".

Being Human also has a slightly weird stance on real-world morality. From episode one, our tall, dark and handsome vampire is a murderer, but we are encouraged to sympathise with him. This week it turns out our ghost was the victim of domestic violence - a sobering and serious subject which doesn't meld well considering we are already suspending our belief in justice and morality from a twelve-storey building. Of course we abhor domestic violence, and the show agrees, this violence led to the death of Annie, our ghost. The same show which allows our vampire to roam free after however many murders with our full support? It's weird. I don't like the vampire, whose name I have conveniently forgotten. I don't like brooding types and, despite what I am being told by the show, I don't like killers.

Joe Chamberlain, the delectable Rupert Penry-Jones, doesn't like a specific killer, his Jack-the-Ripper-copycat in Whitechapel, who, despite the crack team of police officers knowing where, when and how the victims are going to be killed, has yet to stop anyone being murdered. Well done, chaps. We in London will sleep feeling safer in our beds knowing you are protecting us.