David Mitchell and Robert Webb recently whipped Peep Show fans into a frenzy by announcing they’re working on a brand new sketch show. The duo debuted cult classic Peep Show in 2003, and struck gold with their infuriatingly funny characters.
The Channel 4 series saw David play serious and geeky Mark Corrigan, with Robert as his drug-fuelled layabout flatmate Jeremy Usborne. The duo was surrounded by a talented ensemble of other stars and in the years since leaving JLB Credit and Apollo house, the cast has only gone from strength to strength – with some cracking Hollywood while others have married into royalty.
Unfortunately, just like in the show, some stars have also had their fair share of trials and tribulations, including one main character almost losing their life in a horrifying accident. From snagging Oscars to touring as a DJ, here’s what happened next for the stars of Peep Show…
Big Suze was the incredibly posh former girlfriend of Jez, who quickly stole Mark’s heart too. Played by Sophie Winkleman – the half-sister of Strictly Come Dancing host Claudia Winkleman – the star’s life was changed in a second when she almost died in a head-on car crash on December 2, 2017.
Sophie was on her way back from filming Danny Boyle’s drama Trust when the accident happened on the B1383 near Saffron Walden, and suffered life-changing injuries, including a broken back and severe abdominal wounds. For a time after the crash, it was that feared she might never walk – or even work – again.
Reliving that awful night, Sophie previously recalled how she lay in the road waiting for an ambulance thinking she might die. A stranger sat by her side and covered her with a coat, all the while talking to her in an attempt to conscious.
“He was magnificent” Sophie told the Sunday Express. “He found it awful as well. He admitted later that he thought I was dying while he speaking with me. He was trying to keep me alive until the paramedics arrived.”
“Straight after the accident, which happened in the middle of an acting job, I was told that the prognosis was very grim,” she said. “When you’re told you might not walk again you feel lucky for every day.”
Lady Sophie – who is married to King Charles‘ second cousin Lord Frederick Windsor – struggled with everyday tasks for a long time, but the most heartbreaking was not being able to hold her daughters Maud and Isabella.
“I couldn’t pick up either of my daughters for a year, which is very hard to explain to two toddlers,” she said. “But it’s finally getting to the point now where I can pick up the girls without even thinking about it, which is a massive deal. So I’m just starting to be a fully-functioning mother.”
Thankfully, after a long stretch of recuperation, Sophie was able to get back to her career. The star has appeared in TV shows such as Sanditon and This Is Going to Hurt over the past few years, alongside bagging a role in Wonka.
Super Hans was Jez’s wild best buddy with a penchant for crack, cults, and snakes. He was played by actor, DJ and comedian Matt King, although Russell Brand also auditioned for the part.
Born in Essex, he worked as a builder, chef and stand-up comic in Australia for 15 years before being spotted by show bosses at the Edinburgh Festival. But Matt – who quit smoking and drinking in 2019 – said that while he does share some of his character’s traits, he doesn’t have his predilection for hard drugs.
He previously told the Guardian: “No, never touched the stuff. I mean I’ve been a bit hedonistic in the past I suppose but never in the same ballpark as Super Hans. [Super Hans] is not a million miles away from the bad side of me. I get to act out the times I want to be amoral and not give a sh*t about another human being.
“We’ve all got a bit of that in us, Super Hans just takes it to the farthest possible degree. He has no moral compass. In fact, he’s thrown his moral compass away and taken a sh*t on it.”
Matt has worked in projects including The End of the F***ing World and a thief in the Paddington film, and also wrote a six-part British series, Whites, starring Alan Davies. He’s also frequently busy as a DJ, and is often spotted supporting Tottenham Hotspurs. While fans recognise him as Super Hans, however, he himself isn’t a super fan of the show – having never watched an episode.
Jez was the work-shy, petulant housemate of Mark who refused to use his nursing degree because he fancied getting big in music over helping others. He met Mark at university in Dartford before moving into his flat in Apollo House, while in real life, actor Robert met co-star and collaborator David at Cambridge.
In 2020, comedian and author Robert revealed that he had to undergo open heart surgery to save his life after a routine medical, which happened just ahead of his and David’s comedy series Back. The testing found that he had a heart murmur caused by a mitral valve prolapse. Recalling the results of the echocardiogram, he told the Guardian how the doctor delivered the grave news.
“[He said] I’m not saying you’re going to have a heart attack in the next fortnight… But if the problem isn’t addressed, then in the next two or four or six months… this heart will fail.”
The condition was caused by a birth defect and the only solution was for Robert to undergo major surgery. On the morning of the operation, the cardiologist warned against plans to push it back, insisting: “You can’t send him home for five days, he isn’t going to last two days.”
He also lost two thirds of his blood, describing the operation as ‘touch and go.’ It completely changed his outlook on life and forced him to quit smoking and drinking. “My addled brain was on permanent lookout for the right ‘watershed’: no more cigarettes after this birthday, no more wine after this breakfast etc. Well, I’d got my watershed all right. You can’t operate on a beating heart – they were literally about to turn me off and on again. Watershed that, ducky,” he said.
And in January 2021, David opened up about his devastation over fears he would lose his best mate and comedy sidekick of more than 30 years. “It’s always easier to be nice about Rob to other people, so I can say to you that Rob’s heart operation has reminded me how grateful I am to have him in my life,” he said.
Rob has been married to comedian Abbie Burdess since 2006 and they have two daughters, Esme and Dory. The actor has gained plenty of TV credits alongside Peep Show, including Fresh Meat, Doctor Who, and Death in Paradise.
Mark spent years being besotted with colleague Sophie, only to make her his wife and instantly regret it. Sophie experienced her own downfall, turning to clubbing benders and putting her job at risk as she struggled to co-parent baby Ian.
In real life, actress Olivia Colman has had much better luck, becoming a massive Hollywood star after stints in Broadchurch, The Night Manager, The Crown, and an Oscar-winning turn in The Favourite.
She first met Robert and David at the drama society Footlights in Cambridge while training to be a teacher, but David knew she’d be a huge star. David wrote in his autobiography Backstory: “Suddenly she was shining with talent – working the audience, timing her lines, drawing out new laughs without ever seeming hammy.
“There were many talented actors at Cambridge while I was there, very few were as good as Collie – certainly no one better.” After uni she struggled to find acting work and took a typing course and worked as a cleaner before being cast in Peep Show in 2003.
These days Olivia – who has three children with husband Ed Sinclair – is a huge deal who even counts Brad Pitt among her fans. “The last Oscars I went to, Brad Pitt was at a party,” she said, recalling their meeting in February 2020. “I completely fell apart. He came up to me and went ‘Huge fan’ – and I giggled. And then he just walked off.”
Most recently, Olivia has starred in high-budget hits such as The Bear and Paddington in Peru, alongside joining the 2023 movie Wonka, alongside Peep Show co-stars Sophie Winkleman, Isy Suttie, and Paterson Joseph.
Frugal, socially-awkward and terrible with women, Mark’s one source of pride was that he owned his own flat in Apollo House. After pursuing Sophie, he fell hopelessly in love with IT geek Dobby (played by Isy Suttie), but that came crashing down when she left him to move to New York.
In real life, David got a happier ending after meeting journalist and professional poker player Victoria Coren at Jonathan Ross’ Halloween bash in 2007. At the time, he’d resigned himself to a bachelor’s life filled with booze, work and loneliness.
“I’d never really had a long, meaningful relationship,” he wrote in his autobiography Back Story. “I’d had the odd one-night stand here and there. I thought maybe it wouldn’t work out for me. I had lots of friends who were serial monogamists and I’d had a few flings, none of which was perfect, and I thought, that’s not for me.
“I don’t want to go out with someone who I’m not head-over-heels in love with. But then I met Victoria. It took us a while to get together… but I was smitten.”
In fact, David waited for three long years while she dated someone else before his feelings were finally reciprocated. “I didn’t tell my friends or my parents of the enormous sadness that overshadowed my life,” he said of her torment. I was ashamed and I knew what they’d say: Stop indulging yourself in these hopeless feelings. Snap out of it. She doesn’t want to go out with you – she said so.”
His patience paid off. Three years later Victoria became single again and and in March 2012 David popped the question in her kitchen. “She’s clever, funny, beautiful,” he previously told The Mirror. “I think she’s amazing. She’s brilliant at what she does. For three years I thought about her all the time, and I still do but in a much happier way.
“I didn’t know whether I was built to be in a couple and finding that I am is tremendous. Life is a lot less bewildering and stressful when there’s someone to talk to who you know will back you up whatever happens.
“I feel self-conscious talking about it, but of course I had to put it in the book because the book’s a memoir and it’s one of the most important things that’s ever happened to me.”
They tied the knot in November 2012 with Robert as best man, and they welcomed daughter Barbara in May 2015 before growing their family with another daughter, June, in 2023. He is now a regular on TV quiz shows and a team captain on BBC series Would I Lie to You?, and recently impressed viewers with his turn as the twin Taylor brothers in the BBC detective show Ludwig.
Mark was obsessed with his alpha male boss Johnson, who would go on to steal Big Suze from Jeremy. Since the show, Paterson has starred in Casualty, The Green Wing, The Beach, BBC drama Noughts and Crosses and played Ebenezer Scrooge at the Old Vic Theatre. In 2023, he starred in the hit movie Wonka and as the lead in drama Boat Story.
He met his wife Emmanuelle on the set of 1993 film In The Name Of The Father, and they’ve moved back to London with their son after originally living in the Loire valley. He was even once the bookies’ favourite to become the next Doctor Who, but lost out to Matt Smith.
He told Cheshire Live: “Boy, it would have been an amazing opportunity! When I do workshops with young actors and they ask me about rejection and how I cope with it, I say you can’t get them all and shouldn’t get them all. The ones you get, you must love and cherish, but also you must say, ‘That’s that, I didn’t get that.'”
Mark met his match in fellow misfit Dobby, who Jez also ended up falling in love with. Ultimately, Mark turned out to be too emotionally repressed for the IT worker, leaving Mark and Jez both single at the end of the series. In the years since Peep Show, musician, comedian, and actor Isy has worked as a writer on teen drama Skins, and played Esther Blanco in the last series of Shameless.
She proposed to Welsh partner, fellow comedian and Radio X host Elis James in 2016 after meeting at a comedy gig in Barnstaple in 2009. The duo welcomed daughter Beti in 2014, and son Steffan in 2019.
Isy explored motherhood in her standup show Jackpot, and has revealed that the stress of parenting caused her to develop migraine-associated vertigo, meaning she had to take three months away from work.
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