October 12, 2010 10.29 am This story is over 160 months old

No offence: Lincoln bashed on E4 show

In-joke: Despite coming under fire, the University of Lincoln has taken last night’s The Inbetweeners comment lightly.

— Updated with further University of Lincoln statement

The University of Lincoln’s standards of education has come under fire on primetime television comedy, The Inbetweeners.

The episode, called Will is Home Alone, aired by E4 on October 11, made the remark during an argument between two characters, Mr Gilbert and Will.

In the argument, teacher Mr Gilbert was trying to convince student Will to tell him who had been vandalising flowers in the neighbourhood.

When Will could not tell him, Mr Gilbert said: “You’ve got until Monday to find out, otherwise it’s goodbye first-rate education, hello the University of Lincoln.”

To which Will replied: “I’d been to Lincoln and it’s a s**thole.”

The remark led to a huge outburst on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook from past and present Lincoln students.

A Facebook group was made for the quote, where the administrator has simply written: “I don’t care what degree we get, WE WERE ON THE INBETWEENERS!!!!!”

The group has now over 5,700 members.

Despite the two comments dismissing the University’s reputation, the episode was taken lightly by the institution.

A spokesman for the University of Lincoln said: “Hilarious. We’re big fans of the Inbetweeners.”

“We’ve been delighted by the number of people who have jumped to the defence of the university and the city on Facebook, Twitter and online messageboards.

“Even Fearne Cotton was singing the praises of the university and the city on BBC Radio One this morning.

“We’d prefer students to look at national university league tables and the National Student Survey, which show we’re one of the fastest rising universities in the country.”

Meanwhile, script writer for the hit TV show, Ian Morris, apologised to the University on his Twitter account.

He said: “I’m sorry. A friend went there and it was an in-joke. Sometimes the innocent suffer. What a cathedral, eh?”

The Inbetweeners, now in its third series, is a school comedy show centred around four Sixth Form boys.

It showcases their lives before making the big leap to university, with lots of toilet humour and sex jokes.

At the beginning of the year, the University of Lincoln also ranked 34 out of 104 universities in the Times Higher Education Student Experience Survey.