Peep Show creators were up for writing a script

A planned reunion of The Young Ones to be written by the creators of Peep Show was cancelled because of scheduling problems.

Nigel Planer – who played hippy Neil – has revealed that he had planned to reunite with  Rik Mayall, Ade Edmondson and Christopher Ryan for a sketch for Comic Relief.

But although Peep Show’s Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong  were up for the idea, it never came to fruition.

Although it is not clear when the reunion was planned, Planer said: ‘I tried to get us together for Comic Relief but the writers were all too old. I mean, we were old by then. 

‘I tried to get the guys who wrote Peep Show… and one of them went on to write Succession… to write us a Comic Relief thing.  

‘They were up for it. And Paul Jackson, the producer, he was saying "Yes we could do that".

‘But it was just impossible to get all the different people together. It was never gonna happen. There were so many disparate people going in different directions.’

The show was originally written by Ben Elton,  Lise Mayer and Mayall, who died in 2014.

Planer’s comments were reported in today’s Sun. He is currently promoting his recently published memoirs.  The original episodes of The Young Ones are available on iPlayer.

Published: 24 Oct 2025