It launched the careers of Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, Mitchell and Webb, plus Olivia Colman – but it nearly got cancelled. Two decades since its first episode, its stars reflect on the show that made them.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
After a protracted development, beset by scepticism about its problematic shooting style, Peep Show finally reached our screens 20 years ago.
It depicted the bleak lives of “the El Dude brothers” – the delusional Jeremy Usbourne, a selfish layabout half-heartedly pursuing a music career, and the uptight Mark Corrigan, an emotionally repressed loan manager – in excruciating detail.
Audiences got to know Mark and Jeremy intimately through the series’s use of internal monologues, adding another layer of jokes to dense scripts.
Fortunately, it survived for 54 episodes – long enough to become a cultural phenomenon, launching the careers of the two talented double acts at its heart – writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, plus actors David Mitchell and Robert Webb.
Robert Webb (actor, Jeremy Usbourne) We’d met Sam and Jesse during an attempt at a BBC team-written sitcom, which was going to be called Squatters.
It was the last time filming a scene with Olivia Colman (Sophie Chapman), Paterson Joseph (Alan Johnson), Matt King (Super Hans) and everyone so we savoured it.
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