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Review: Peep Show

Like all the greatest rock stars, the best British comedic dramas have historically died young: Fawlty Towers, The Office; even Monty Python’s Flying Circus properly lasted only three series. Peep Show fully deserves to number among these classics, but, now bucking the trend, is in its eighth series. With the show, and its characters, now almost a decade older than when it all began, you could be forgiven for expecting a certain level of classiness or maturity: Mark (David Mitchell, who Cherwell interviewed earlier this year), after all, now has a child and has asked his long-term girlfriend Dobbie (Isy Suttie) to move in, turfing Jez (Robert Webb) out.

But, thank goodness, nothing has become sacred: even last rites. Mark seethes as Dobbie tends to the sickly Gerard (Jim Howick). One evening Mark manages to persuade her not to rush to his bedside – “But Dobs, it’s the Apprentice tonight, I think there’s going to be someone we both really hate” – and, hilariously, Gerard kicks the bucket. Corrigan remains a master of the acutely awkward observation, the cynical retort and the withering put-down; and what a relief it is that while the material feels so fresh, the central conventions of the show have survived intact: it is comforting to see Jeremy’s inane reasoning (“I’d make a great therapist. Look at all the pussy I bag”) and Mark’s sardonic wisecracks (“Is that a quote from Freud or Jung?”) continuing to manifest in their characteristically outrageous fashion.

Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, the writers of Peep Show, deserve medals for crafting a script that manages to place authentic, pitch-perfect, toe-curling awkwardness into poetry: “I never stone alone; I’m just high on pie”, is how Mark declines a spliff. A useful one to remember. All that said, the format is predictable. Jeremy says and does stupid things; Mark pursues eminently sensible goals, but typically fouls up just as badly as Jeremy. Jeremy remains an infant in a grown man’s body: a perennial failure with occasional flashes of jealousy. Hearing that Mark has published a book (albeit with the suspiciously named ‘British London’) Jeremy panics: “What next? He’s found a director for his film? A builder for his cathedral?” Mark loves to berate Jeremy for his failings, but in reality is consumed by a similarly bitter pettiness; acutely conscious of his own under-achievement, Mark patronises Jeremy and jealously curtails even Dobby’s career ambitions.

You sort of know how this is going to unravel just by skim-reading the subtext. But ultimately it doesn’t matter. Peep Show revels gloriously in drudgery; even its most colourful characters lack charisma, instead generating in their comic interactions a remarkable anti-charisma, which itself forms the gravitational centre of the show’s charm and intrigue. Mark and Jeremy can always be trusted to get over their mutual loathing because, after all, the only thing animating the lives of the ‘El Dude’ brothers is each other. The fruits of that relationship, not just the gags, are surely the reason the show has lasted so long. The viewer remains as wedded to the central relationship as Mark and Jeremy are to each other: we remain oddly charmed by how totally aware they are of the other’s naivety and haplessness, while apparently blissfully ignorant of their own. And how deeply they know each other’s quirks: Episode 2’s depiction of Jeremy discovering Mark executing the ‘Velvet Spoon Routine’ (avoiding the obligation of making him a cup of tea) is a highlight.

“I hate living with him, but I never really want it to end,” Jeremy describes living with Mark. In a similar way, I’m not quite sure why I keep watching Peep Show. Its pulling power is akin to popping bubble wrap: it all seems slightly mundane and a little pathetic but somehow instils a deep affection in me. Series 8 has moved to Sunday night from the usual Friday slot, a shrewd move I think: the essence of Peep Show chimes much better with the Sunday night mood: dour, reflective, lazy, mercurial. Series 8 has got off to a cracking start. The next episode sees Jeremy move out of the flat and in with the steadfastly drugged-up Super Hans. Perhaps they should move this one back to Friday.

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