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Most of the time, it feels like there are too many idiots in the world. But perhaps the idiots are just in the wrong places. They shouldn’t be in political office or on our social media feeds, doling out parenting advice from their 4x4s and touting thinly-veiled pyramid schemes from their continental villas. No, they should be in the tiny Northern Irish town of Ballymacnoose, pootling about on a farm or in their parents’ home, staying well clear of any kind of career ladder and making no tangible impact on the world. The fact that Ballymacnoose doesn’t really exist? Even better.

This is the very strong case put forward by Funboys, a BBC sitcom that debuted last year and now returns for a second series. It is the work of Rian Lennon and Ryan Dylan, who co-star as two friends in their mid 20s: Jordan (a whiny manchild) and Callum (a wretched loser) respectively. They are joined by funboy three, Lorcan (Lee R James), who is more intelligent and level-headed than the other two put together. Which isn’t really saying much.

We follow this thick-as-thieves trio (emphasis on the thick) – plus Lorcan’s significantly more worldly English girlfriend, Gemma (a very funny Ele McKenzie) – as they engage in various hijinks, from terrible dates and class A-induced panic attacks to attempts to win money in a robot-battle tournament. Yet what elevates Funboys beyond standard fare is its gleefully silly mock-earnest tone. This stems mainly from the ludicrous sentimentality that surrounds Jordan, Callum and Lorcan’s friendship: there are group hugs and motivational speeches and much self-satisfied appreciation of their three-way bromance.

There are also melodramatic arguments, delivered with hammy flourishes that belong in toe-curling teen dramas, plus plenty of cheesy movie bombast when anything even slightly exciting happens. That the trio seem to be performing their friendship – badly – to a nonexistent audience turns Funboys into a satire of cosy film and TV, a joke that begins with the 1980s-style title sequence (a fade-in clip montage playing out over aerial footage of rolling hills soundtracked by stodgy guitar rock).

It’s a comic mode that feels pleasingly modern: there is some overlap with the work of Tim Robinson and Sam Campbell, whose recent Channel 4 series Make That Movie foregrounds the knock-off Hollywood film vibe. Funboys also draws on the over emotional stupidity that permeated Jamie Demetriou’s Stath Lets Flats. It wasn’t, therefore, a huge surprise to see Demetriou crop up as Gemma’s deranged brother in the first series.

This time round we get another major cameo. Callum has recently started working at a living history attraction, playing a 19th century peasant struggling to provide for his family. Steve Coogan is his boss, Phillip, who takes his own performance as a brutal land agent far too seriously. It’s a setup that allows Funboys to double down on its melodrama-pastiching MO as the pair chew multiple layers of scenery.

As Callum is solemnly jigging a creepy doll meant to represent his child, Jordan is learning about history. The Irish famine to be exact, which prompts him to – very belatedly – develop empathy. Distraught, he decides to donate his Family Guy DVDs to Namibian children (“laughter is the best medicine”) and give away the family car. The only way his friends can placate him is to stage a flat bum contest for him to win, the theory being that a public triumph will put Jordan back in touch with his ego, instantly returning him to his selfish old self.

It’s not just farming, famines and Family Guy: with three young bucks at its centre, sex is inevitably one of Funboys’ primary preoccupations. Jordan and Callum get agonisingly close to losing their virginities – the latter with a woman who finds failure erotic, the former with that woman’s older, downtrodden (obviously) lover. Lorcan, on the other hand, is getting plenty – possibly too much – action in the bedroom. The sexually aggressive Gemma is desperate to perform analingus on him, which Lorcan reluctantly agrees to. Soon everyone knows: Callum wretches violently while Lorcan’s dad furiously rants about his own father “flipping in his grave like a tiddlywink” if he could see his grandson now.

I laughed so much at this storyline that I couldn’t help attempting to unpick the joke, a confluence of absurdities that includes Gemma’s enthusiasm for the act, Callum’s naive and visceral response to it, and the inevitable note of schmaltzy reconciliation it ends on. Proof that this level of silliness belies some serious comic architecture. These boys may be idiots, but the men behind them are nothing of the sort.

• Funboys aired on BBC Three and is on iPlayer now.