Peep Show is a British television sitcom starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb, and created by Andrew O'Connor, Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain. The series was written by Armstrong and Bain, with additional material by Mitchell and Webb, among others. It was broadcast on Channel 4 from 19 September 2003 to 16 December 2015. In 2010, it became the longest-running comedy in Channel 4 history in terms of years on air. The programme's title comes from its usage of point-of-view shots—largely a first-person narrative with frequent voiceovers for the main characters' thoughts.

Peep Show follows the lives of dysfunctional best friends Mark Corrigan (Mitchell) and Jeremy "Jez" Usbourne (Webb) , who share a flat in Croydon, South London. Mark is a pessimistic, socially awkward loan manager who dreams of being a historian, while Jeremy is a perpetually unemployed layabout and failed musician who lives in Mark's spare room. The show has been described by Bain as portraying "the stubborn persistence of human suffering", while Armstrong said it was "about oddball male friendship, perhaps even 'masculinity.

Despite never achieving high viewing figures during its original run, Peep Show received consistent critical acclaim and has since become a cult classic. In April 2019, three years after its final episode, the series was named the thirteenth greatest British sitcom in a poll by Radio Times.Fawlty Towers tops Radio Times greatest British sitcom list. British Comedy Guide, 9 April 2019. It has also been described as one of the best television programmes produced in the 21st century, and one of the best comedy series of all time.

Cast and characters

Main David Mitchell as Mark Corrigan, a loan manager at fictional company JLB Credit. Intelligent and hard-working, but also pessimistic and socially awkward, Mark is the owner of the flat in Croydon, which he shares with his friend from university, Jeremy. While he considers himself morally superior to others (especially Jeremy), Mark in reality is often self-serving, petty, and mean-spirited. Robert Webb as Jeremy "Jez" Usbourne, an aspiring musician and an unemployed "work-shy freeloader" who lives in the spare room of Mark's flat. He is selfish, juvenile, and arrogant, while considering himself to be immensely talented and attractive. Although superficially more socially skilled than Mark, his over-confidence and narcissism mean that in practice he is equally socially inept.

Recurring Matt King as Super Hans, Jeremy's bandmate and friend, who regularly uses recreational drugs. He appears in every series, appearing in 36 out of the show's 54 episodes. It is revealed in the second episode of the ninth series that his real name is Simon. Olivia Colman as Sophie Hortensia Chapman (series 1–7; guest series 9), a colleague at JLB, who serves as a love interest for Mark (and occasionally Jeremy) throughout much of the series. She and Mark eventually marry but divorce shortly afterwards, and she later gives birth to his child. As the series goes on, Sophie becomes increasingly unstable, using drugs and drinking to excess. Elizabeth Marmur as Toni (series 1–2), Mark and Jeremy's neighbour and romantic interest. Neil Fitzmaurice as Jeff Heaney (series 1–3, 5–7; guest series 4, 8–9), Mark's colleague and rival at JLB. The two frequently clash over the affections of Sophie, with Jeff's more manly, confident behaviour serving as a foil to Mark's mild-mannered persona. Paterson Joseph as Alan Johnson (series 2–3, 5–6, 9; guest series 1, 4, 7–8), a senior loan manager at JLB and Mark's boss for much of the series. While presenting himself as suave and hyper-confident, in reality he is reckless and self-deluded. Despite this, Mark constantly desperately seeks his approval. Rachel Blanchard as Nancy (series 2, 4), a free-spirited, exceptionally beautiful but slightly dysfunctional American woman with whom Jeremy has a relationship. Sophie Winkleman as Big Suze (series 3, 5–6; guest series 4, 7), Jeremy's ex-girlfriend and frequent romantic interest. She is attractive but naive, and described by Mark as a "mental posho". Jim Howick as Gerrard Matthew (series 5–7; guest series 4, 8), Mark's sickly colleague and sometimes-friend at JLB, and later his rival for Dobby's affections. Isy Suttie as Dobby (series 5–8; guest series 9), an IT worker at JLB and a self-confessed misfit, much like Mark, who quickly develops strong feelings for her and the couple have a dysfunctional relationship. She is frequently disappointed by Mark. Vera Filatova as Elena (series 6), a Russian woman who becomes romantically involved with Jeremy.

Production

Writers Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain met actors/writers Mitchell and Webb during an attempt to complete a team-written sitcom for the BBC. They had an old, unproduced script that they wanted to revive called All Day Breakfast and brought in Mitchell and Webb to help out. The show was not made, but the four developed as a partnership, and one idea eventually evolved into Peep Show for Channel 4.

Peep Show was originally conceived as a sitcom in the style of Beavis and Butt-Head revolving around two characters watching and discussing television. However, the idea was dropped due to the large expense that airing clips from other shows would bring as well as Mitchell and Webb's fear that, because their characters would only be watching television, "[they] wouldn't be in the show". Instead, Armstrong and Bain opted to produce a more story-based sitcom with an unconventional filming style. The events of the two main characters' lives are seen almost exclusively from their own points of view with a voice-over providing their internal thoughts. The title of the show is taken from the 1990s comic book series by Joe Matt.

Scenes in the show are sometimes filmed using cameras strapped to the actors' heads, or attached to a hat, to give the viewer a point of view identical to that of the protagonists. The quality of footage captured with this method is sometimes poor and the technique was used less and less in later series. When head-mounted cameras are not used, scenes are filmed with the camera being held over the actor's shoulder, or directly in front of their face; each scene is therefore shot multiple times from different angles. Armstrong and Bain's choice of the style was influenced by the 2000 Channel 4 documentary Being Caprice about the model Caprice Bourret which featured a similar technique that had in turn been copied from the 1999 film Being John Malkovich. Bain noted: "So it's a third-hand steal, really. We thought it would be great for comedy, hearing someone else's thoughts. The voices give you a whole other dimension in terms of jokes." The idea for using voice-overs came from a scene in the Woody Allen film Annie Hall in which the true feelings of the characters are conveyed by subtitles. The POV technique distinguishes Peep Show from other sitcoms; Mitchell has said that without it, Peep Show would be similar to shows like Spaced and Men Behaving Badly. At a 2015 preview screening of the final series, David Mitchell half-jokingly said: "Filming things POV is a stupid way to film things. It's much harder to do than the normal way of filming. It could not be clearer to me after all these years why no other programme is filmed that way."

Two pilots were filmed for the show, which allowed Armstrong and Bain to firmly develop and finalise the style of the show. Armstrong said, "On the run of doing those two pilots, we really created the show in the way that you couldn't if you hadn't tried it out." In the original pilot, Olivia Colman's character, Sophie Chapman, also had a voice-over in addition to Mitchell and Webb's characters, Mark and Jeremy. The POV technique was also restricted solely to the character thinking at the time; it was later expanded so that the view could come from a third party. Bain and Armstrong are the show's principal writers and Mitchell and Webb provide additional material. Many story lines come from experiences in the writers' lives, particularly Bain's. For example, the series 5 episode "Burgling" sees Mark apprehend a burglar by sitting on him, something Bain once did in a video shop. The writing for each series took place seven to eight months before filming; rehearsals took two weeks and filming lasted for six to seven weeks.

Mark and Jeremy's flat is supposedly located in Croydon, South London. This is occasionally mentioned in the script, but the location is not emphasised, and, according to pilot director Jeremy Wooding, "the overall idea was that where [Mark and Jeremy] lived was Nowheresville and Anywheresville". Nevertheless, for the first two series, the scenes set in the flat were filmed in a real property in Croydon. The flat's owners did not allow it to be used for series 3, so a replica was constructed in a carpet warehouse in Neasden. Further filming took place at West London Film Studios. Croydon was initially selected for reasons of practical convenience, as many of the cast and crew lived in South London or Brighton. Wooding "liked the idea of there being trams" (i.e. Croydon Tramlink), but Channel 4 stopped him using trams in the series.

The theme tune for the first series was an original composition by Daniel Pemberton and is featured on his TVPOPMUZIK album. From the second series onwards, the theme music is the song "Flagpole Sitta" by the American band Harvey Danger (although the original first series composition was still heard briefly during scene changes). A working title for the programme was POV, as noted by David Mitchell on the DVD commentary for the first episode of the first series.

Series overview

Series 1 Mark and Jez start out with similar aims of sleeping with their next-door neighbour Toni (Elizabeth Marmur). Jez does this, while she is separating from her husband, Tony. Mark is obsessed with his colleague Sophie (Olivia Colman), who is more interested in their manly colleague Jeff. Mark has a one-night stand with a teenage goth girl. Mark and Jez endure awkward situations: Mark admires his boss, Alan Johnson (Paterson Joseph), and struggles to work out whether or not he is sexually attracted to him. Jez remembers engaging in fellatio with Super Hans (Matt King) during a drug binge. Sophie beats Mark to a promotion, so Mark and Jez desperately team up to prank call Sophie, which leads to her shooting them with a pellet gun. They also launch a pepper spray attack on Super Hans, who has begun a fling with Toni. Mark sees a therapist, and nearly succeeds in having sex with Sophie, but this chance is ruined by Jez's apparent drug overdose. Shortly afterwards, Jez claims to Toni that he has a terminal illness in order to persuade her to have sex with him.

Series 2