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Arts feature

How we killed comedy theatre: Nigel Planer interviewed

Lloyd Evans talks to Nigel Planer about the death of comedy theatre — and how he’s trying to revive it

28 August 2021

9:00 AM

28 August 2021

9:00 AM

Nigel Planer is on a mission to bring farce back to the West End. ‘There’s a lot of snobbery in comedy,’ he tells me when we meet at a hotel bar near the Old Vic. ‘People say, “Oh that’s comedy. It can’t have any meaning”.’

The actor and writer is still best known for playing Neil the hippie in the 1980s sitcom The Young Ones and he can recall a time when farce was a staple of London theatre.

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