David Mitchell rules out a reunion

David Mitchell has again ruled out a Peep Show reunion.

The first episode of the sitcom aired on Channel 4 20 years ago this month – but the star says he will not be reuniting with Robert Webb, Olivia Colman and Matt King to celebrate.

‘No, we are not organising an event,’ he told Graham Norton on his chat show, which airs on BBC One tonight.

‘I am very proud of it, but having made it so long ago it reminds me of my own mortality.

Previously he and Webb have raised the idea of revisiting their characters of Mark and Jez in old age.

‘We’ve always said that it would be funny to go back and see them as old men," Webb reiterated in an NME interview this week. ‘Living in the same flat and having the same arguments… I think probably this side of, shall we say, 70?’

However Mitchell added in that interview: ‘It’s nice that people still give a shit… I don’t want to tack anything onto the end of it. It would have to be a totally separate thing. I wouldn’t want it to drag the original thing down.’

Mitchell was on the Graham Norton Show to talk about Unruly, his new book on the history of English royalty.

He said: ‘I love history and I love kings and queens.  I am particularly interested in the a-holes in crowns that did dreadful things that really weren’t very funny at the time, but because they happened so long ago, we can now laugh at them.’

Other guests on the show include Mawaan Rizwaan, talking about the surreal BBC Three sitcom Juice, which he wrote and stars in.

He said: ‘It wasn’t easy to communicate such a surreal vision, but the live show had worked so I thought it work on telly."  

Talking about fame, he added: ‘It is intense, a real transition.  I did a scene with my mum and brother and it was emotional, I just couldn’t believe it – it was nuts given where we had come from.’

And in a further step in that  journey to celebrity, he found himself getting some  advice from fellow guest Kylie  Minogue, who told him: ‘It is a job, and you need friends and family to keep it real.’

• The Graham Norton Show in on BBC One and iPlayer at 10.40pm tonight. Next week’s guests include Catherine Tate and Bill Bailey

Published: 29 Sep 2023