Work hard, play harder: is a maxim bandied around so much that it’s become a cliché.

Especially as, when you hit a certain age, ‘a nice lie down’ certainly feels like it should be the final side of a magic triangle, whatever Nev from The Call Centre says.

But, programme-makers have struck gold with a bunch of bright-eyed youngsters getting stuck into life on the farm and downtime on the dancefloor in a haze of alcopop sweats.

The first series of First Time Farmers aired last year, in the grand tradition of dodgily named programmes about teens (BBC Three’s Barely Legal Drivers still makes me cringe) and is now back on Thursdays at 10pm on Channel Four.

There’s a reason for the lateness of that slot. First Time Farmers, which follows the fortunes of a dozen young grafters, mainly in the soulfully beautiful Herefordshire (who knew?), is inevitably about life and death in the raw.

For example, there is amazing footage of calves being born, all hooves and goo, which is perfect for viewers who may be weary with One Born Every Minute and wanting to move up to something stronger. Well, this is proper farming, not larking about with a couple of chickens and an Eglu, and makes fascinating viewing. While most of us rarely give a hoot where our pint of milk and packet of bacon come from, this lot are up before dawn, soaking up the raspberry ripple sunrises while toiling for hours milking and hosing down slurried dairy stalls, with a killer hangover.

And you can’t help but have massive respect for these kids (she said, patronisingly), even if their chat-up lines are distinctly dodgy. “What’s your favourite tractor?” asks Kate, followed by “Have you ever milked a cow?”

Luckily for Kate, she is a ‘stand-out hottie’ who, she tells us (while a cow poos voluminously at the lens), is often mistaken for a hairdresser.

Kate is among the stars of the show, who seem hell-bent on having fun during one of the most depressing phases of graduating to adult life, let alone with a banging headache.

All the mothers on this show, henpecking their sons out of bed, whingeing about how they’ve missed a bit while they’re trying to shear a headbutty sheep, come across as miserable hags, which makes you the viewer right on the younguns’ side. But: beware the manipulation. First Time Farmers is directed by the makers of Made in Chelsea, and you can really tell, with its snippets of mates chatting, interspersed with youthful pop. If you’re not a fan of Towie (The Only Way Is Essex), or the revoltingly entertaining Geordie Shore (its cheerful Tyneside sister), this style might jar slightly.

Setting up scenarios is all very well and good if you’re trying to spice up footage of amusingly vacuous and superficial people, but less necessary when you’ve got great meaty subject matter to work with. First Time Farmers’ makers should have ditched all the meaningless gameshow fakery .

What is really fascinating is the valiant attempts by the youngsters to find fresh meat, tuck into college life (drinking out of a shoe factors heavily) and rear their animals more tenderly than most people treat their own family. Most relatives don’t end up as the Sunday roast, but this lot do, which makes for interesting contrasts. When the narrator says ‘calving time’, you instantly think of carving time, with rearing, dying and eating served up together unsqueamishly.

‘Pretty little things, aren’t they,’ muses the abattoir assistant, fondly patting an eyelashed sow on the cheek before it heads off to be barbecued for lunch. With four more episodes of First Time Farmers, you could do worse than watch the likeable young farmers being lightly grilled as well.

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