Nigel Planer

Interview with former Young Ones star Nigel Planer

It's more than two decades since Nigel Planer was a long-haired hippy singing about a hole in his shoe - but people still sing the lyrics to him in the street.

Young Ones star joins Doctor Who tour

Actor Nigel Planer - best known for his role as TV hippy Neil in The Young Ones - is to take centre stage in the new live-action Doctor Who tour, it was announced today.

As part of their Grey Expectations season, BBC4 gave an hour of airtime over to Nicholas Craig, the greatest luvvie of his generation, to present an acting masterclass on How to Be Old.

Topics covered included keeling over, speaking in "auldshire", bronchial coughing, creating a doddery walk and dealing with rowdy juveniles, all illustrated by an excellent array of TV drama archive clips.

In between exploring career options for the third-age thesp, Craig rails against such diverse personal and professional bugbears as Strictly Come Dancing, whingeing actresses, having to wear one's own clothes in Casualty and his youthful assistant producers, Lucy and Octavia: "I've slow-roasted joints of pork longer than she's been in the business!"

Craig is a brilliant creation, beautifully scripted by Christopher Douglas and played to perfection by Nigel Planer. Despite this, the subject matter for this particular outing was a little too thin to support an hour and there were occasional tell-tale signs of padding.

But this is a little churlish, given the many moments of pure delight, such as Craig's explanation of how the Spotlight Directories work: "Spotty is divided into sections. There's Young, where you'll find all the middle-aged actors. Leading, for older actors. And Character, for very old, ugly actors."

In his alter ego of thespian Nicholas Craig, Nigel Planer's brilliant luvvie spoof pitches in to the BBC's Grey Expectations strand with a hilarious masterclass in the art of elderly acting. The clips he uses are mostly ancient, but the combination of the script by Christopher Douglas and Nicholas Craig's impeccable delivery guarantee that by the end of the hour even your teeth will ache from non-stop laughing.

For any actors about to embark upon an old role in a Dickens or a hospital drama, there is invaluable expert instruction here from Craig in all aspects of the craft, from the bronchial wheezing, the limping, the hobble, dirty old men (or women), how to fall over and that particular regional accent they will be required to master known as "Oldshire."

Even on the subject of animals, Craig's advice will be invaluable. "It's very important that if an actress is given a pet, she goes completely mental over it."

This is a hilarious spoof 'acting masterclass' starring Nigel Planer (Neil in The Young Ones) as the titular, delusional aging thesp. Fresh from his triumph as 'Ebeneezer Tumblewhiskers' in a BBC costume drama - for which he won a BUPA Award - Craig advises actors of "the third age" in the key skills required to play elderly characters, including the development of just the right viscosity of hacking cough, how to handle a walking stick and perfecting your doddering stagger. Intercut with a clips from actual TV dramas that showcase the astonishing levels of ham used to denote age on screen, this provides an insightful satirical comment on TV portrayals of older people as well as some brilliant jokes. Written and directed by Christopher Douglas, creator of the equally superb Ed Reardon's Week on R4 and cricket jobsworth Dave Podmore.