I adore his shtick, however, and Peep Show is the one series that provides it with the platform it deserves. You get the distinct impression that Mark Corrigan isn’t a million miles away from Mitchell’s own personality and when he gets variously annoyed with the youth of today, flatmate Jeremy or any number of daily occurrences that combine to ruin his day, I am left thinking that these incidents are probably ones that have aggravated Mitchell at some time during his life. This lends his performance as Mark that bit more believability and, for me, marks out Mark Corrigan as one of the single finest comedy characters to ever hit British screens. Shame then that it all came to a crashing end thanks to a boiler that’s just too hot and, more crushingly, because of the results of Sophie’s paternity test – great news for Jeremy (not the Daddy), not so great for Mark. So now we know Mark is the father, that gives the show licence to run with that idea further and I’m glad it’s been put into play this early on in the series. As I wrote last week, this is going to be the big series’ story arc and one of the more interesting ones in Peep Show‘s history. Jeremy has always been the more sexually active of the flatmates, although his own ineptness with women has been brought to focus in this series on several occasions, most markedly here with his initial meeting with Elena. “Hi. How’s it handling?” No Super-Hans this time round which did prove just how strong a character he is, often grabbing many of the fantastic lines of the show. I also fear that we may have seen the last of Dobby, Sophie’s revelation naturally leading to her hotfooting it out of Mark’s flat faster than the fastest thing you can think of. A cheetah, for example. I’m hoping she makes a return for she lends the series a cracking dynamic, providing Mark with a potential partner who genuinely likes him for what he is. She is the Muttley to his Dick Dasterdly and giving Mark the chance to see some light at the end of the eternally dark tunnel that is his life naturally offers many chances to pull Mark back into the abyss. Read our review of episode 1 here.
