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Over two decades ago, two British shows reinvented television comedy with mortifyingly funny alternatives to regular sitcoms. One of them might immediately come to mind: \u201cThe Office,\u201d a cringe-comedy landmark that revived the mockumentary format and inspired an American version that became its own institution.<\/p>\n
The other never achieved such widespread renown, at least not on these shores. But \u201cPeep Show,\u201d which chronicled two spiraling roommates in a grotty London flat, was highly influential in Britain and beyond.<\/p>\n
The sitcom aired on Channel 4 for nine seasons, from 2003-15, and it was beloved enough for the British Film Institute to hold a 20th anniversary tribute in 2023. Its stars, David Mitchell and Robert Webb, continue to be fixtures of British comedy. (Mitchell\u2019s latest show, a mystery series called \u201cLudwig,\u201d<\/a> arrives on BritBox on Thursday.) A young Olivia Colman, now an Oscar-winning actor, was part of the cast. One of the creators, Jesse Armstrong<\/a>, later earned international acclaim as the mastermind of the HBO hit \u201cSuccession.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But \u201cPeep Show\u201d remains a cult item or secret handshake for American audiences. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of the hipster\u2019s choice,\u201d Armstrong, who created the show with Sam Bain, said in an interview. \u201cOccasionally, somebody on set would come and say, \u2018Hey, I like your other work, especially \u2018Peep Show.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cPeep Show,\u201d which now streams on Hulu<\/a> and Amazon Prime Video<\/a>, among other services, is filmed in a first-person style, complete with internal monologues. It puts audiences into the minds of two friends who invariably do exactly the wrong thing, in different ways. Mark Corrigan (Mitchell) is a strait-laced insurance adjuster who flails around women, and people generally. Jeremy (Webb), also known as Jez, is a perpetually unemployed techno musician who exhibits the self-control of a puppy.<\/p>\n Armstrong and Bain were partly inspired by a first-person-style 2000 documentary called \u201cBeing Caprice,\u201d which follows the mundane interests of a model. Other reference points included the odd-couple pairing of \u201cWithnail and I\u201d and American shows like \u201cCurb Your Enthusiasm.\u201d<\/p>\n The two writers met in a writing course at university and had written prototypes for Mark and Jeremy in the late 1990s. They were based on friends who were sharing a flat under socially awkward circumstances (one friend owned the flat, and the others rented from him).<\/p>\n \u201cThat was the area we were going toward: young men washed up on the beaches of reality after a lifetime in education and figuring out whether they\u2019re going to be an office drone, like Mark, or a creative butterfly, like Jeremy,\u201d said Bain, who has collaborated on other shows with Armstrong.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The point-of-view style, steady stream of internal commentary and colorfully drawn gallery of supporting characters helped distinguish the show\u2019s \u201codd couple\u201d setup. Viewers are privy to Mark\u2019s inept courtship of his co-worker Sophie (Colman) and to Jez\u2019s clueless confusion as he plays second fiddle to his musical collaborator, Super Hans (Matt King).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI\u2019m just a normal functioning member of the human race and there\u2019s no way anyone can prove otherwise,\u201d Mark says in voice-over at one point, with hopeless defiance.<\/p>\n While \u201cThe Office\u201d gave the immediacy of a documentary-style eye, watching people twist in the wind, \u201cPeep Show\u201d offered something \u201ca bit more internal,\u201d Armstrong said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt just lets an audience which is very conversant with media technology pretend they\u2019re there\u201d with the characters, Armstrong said.<\/p>\n Mitchell and Webb were veterans of their own sketch shows, and, as Armstrong put it, their comic perspectives were \u201cbaked into\u201d the show. He and Bain could write voice-over one-liners for the pair well into the editing process, making for a show with little dead air.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But the \u201cPeep Show\u201d formula first had to work through some kinks before hitting its stride. Initially, the first-person format was a little rigid \u2014 the camera was actually helmet-mounted on the actor\u2019s head. Bain credits an editor, Lucien Clayton, with cracking the code.<\/p>\n \u201cI was getting it to be rapid-fire and getting rid of the rules imposed on the edit,\u201d Clayton said. One key rule change was to show Mark or Jeremy onscreen while hearing his thoughts, letting us see and hear their panic or bewilderment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Leon Hunt, the author of \u201cCult British TV Comedy,\u201d said the show\u2019s masterstroke was to dramatize a complicated but common human experience: the effort to present a socially acceptable facade while your thoughts are anything but. \u201cI think its real secret was the way it used the inner voice of its two lead characters as a way of showing the tension between our inner and outer selves,\u201d he wrote in an email.<\/p>\n The show\u2019s title was taken from Peepshow, the warts-and-all autobiographical comic by the American cartoonist Joe Matt, who died in 2023. \u201cThe idea of being \u2018access to all areas\u2019 when it comes to psychology and the dirt of human life was definitely an inspiration,\u201d Bain said.<\/p>\n That meant following the characters at their absolute nadirs. One episode ends with Mark being violently ill in a bathroom with no door, in front of an entire party. Another somehow climaxes with Jeremy eating a family\u2019s pet in front of them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n They could also go too far: Armstrong says they scrapped one plotline where Mark\u2019s hard-charging boss, Alan Johnson (Paterson Joseph), takes his own life. After nine seasons, the show approached another limit: middle age.<\/p>\n \u201cIt started to feel that the pathos and depression of that could become overwhelming,\u201d Armstrong said of the two roommates pushing 40 and going nowhere fast.<\/p>\n Since the show ended, multiple remakes have been developed, most recently an American reboot with female roommates, but none have made it to air. But Mark and Jeremy\u2019s personal disasters and worse solutions continue to pick up fans (including, to Clayton\u2019s bewilderment, the teenage friends of his children).<\/p>\n \u201cFortunately,\u201d Bain said, \u201cself-loathing is pretty universal.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n