List of Peep Show characters
Peep Show is a British sitcom starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb. The series follows the lives of two men, from their twenties to their thirties, who live in a flat in Croydon, London. Mark Corrigan, who has steady employment for most of the series, and his lodger, Jeremy "Jez" Usbourne, an unemployed would-be musician, are the main characters of the show. It was shown on Channel 4 from 2003 to 2015.
Major characters
Characters appear in all series unless otherwise specified.Mark Corrigan
Mark Corrigan is the miserly, vindictive owner of the flat that he shares with Jeremy. Mark is portrayed to be responsible, articulate and intelligent, at least compared with most of the other characters. He is also pessimistic, unhappy and socially and sexually awkward. He had a miserable upbringing, and is terrified of his father, who is gruff and difficult. Not much is known of Mark's parents, except that they have remained married despite various marital issues. Their awkward marriage may be the cause of Mark's own struggles with women, warping his understanding of what a healthy and transparent relationship should look like. Mark is a graduate in Business Studies from the fictional Dartmouth University, where he met Jeremy. He passed 7 GCSEs, and he has a love of history, especially ancient history—which he originally wanted to study at university, before being pressured by his parents into reading business studies instead. He often makes references to history, including Nazi Germany and the Second World War, in relation to events that happen in his day-to-day life.Mark is convinced that Jeremy's laziness, lack of logical rigour and indifference towards cultural pursuits are markers of low intellect, but often looks to him for social guidance. Mark is plagued by paranoia as to how others perceive him, and by doubts over whether his actions are normal. In spite of his thoughtful and sensible exterior and his tendency to act as the moral centre of his surroundings, he has frequent bouts of selfishness, schadenfreude and impulsive behaviour. He loathes many aspects of modern culture, such as drug use and openness of sexuality; he often simply endures activities that others around him enjoy, viewing them as "the price you pay to avoid loneliness". Despite this, he has a chronic fear of loneliness throughout the show, and continuously perseveres with doomed and irrationally motivated romantic relationships as a result.
Mark's political sympathies are arguably the most developed of any character in the show, and yet they retain some ambiguity. He appears to be politically rational, if socially the exact opposite. He is mildly Eurosceptic, but overall his views appear to be left-of-centre. What could be misconstrued as socially conservative views on his part are more likely motivated by a hatred and fear of other people than a right-wing viewpoint. In the second series he says that "Tony Blair isn't such a bad thing", but in the fifth he claims "nobody wanted New Labour" and shows admiration for Paddy Ashdown of the Liberal Democrats. At one point Mark refers to "the miracle of consumer capitalism" as the backbone of society, albeit often with pessimistic acceptance rather than enthusiasm. He genuinely abhors bigotry and far-right politics, which in Series 2 causes him to lose one of the few true friends he had made onscreen aside from Jez. Mark often criticises those who believe in God, but has been seen praying in times of extreme panic. Although it is never stated in the show, his surname is of Irish origin.
When the series starts, Mark has already been a loan manager at a London branch of JLB for around four years, at least judging from the timing given by Jez in Series 2. His time at JLB comes to a close when the branch closes down in the first episode of Series 6; later on, Mark works as a waiter at the Mexican restaurant Banditos, as a bathroom equipment salesman at Bath, Bathrooms, and Fittings, and finally again as a loan manager at the fictional Met City Bank with his former boss Alan Johnson. He is fired in the series finale, partly because of Jeremy's belated reaction to an abusive loan Mark had set up for him at the bank.
Mark's obsession with Sophie and his relationship with her, is a major storyline of the first four series. She is seen almost exclusively through his eyes, showing her as merely kind-hearted and preventing the audience from understanding her real personality or motivations. By the third series, however, she is revealed to be narcissistic, boring, impulsive, and abrasive. These revelations coincide with Mark finally getting the chance to get together with her, but Mark is shown to be by this point increasingly apathetic towards her. Nonetheless, he perseveres neurotically with what becomes a passionless relationship bereft of mutual understanding. Mark appears completely unable to comprehend what type of man Sophie wants him to be. She takes no interest in his personal interests, such as history, fuelling him to attempt to lean into his masculinity. The two become increasingly frustrated and uninterested in one another, but Mark is in denial about what a healthy relationship looks like and refuses to accept that theirs is doomed. Mark's paranoia surrounding loneliness reaches fever pitch when he determines he must marry her or she will eventually leave him. While on a weekend trip with Sophie to Somerset, during which he plans to propose, Mark realises with Jeremy's help that he doesn't actually love her and should break up with her. However, she finds the planned engagement ring before he can tell her this and "accepts", apparently mostly out of a desire to have children. Mark feigns happiness out of fear of humiliation. The pair spend an agonising next few months preparing for a wedding neither truly want, with Mark and Jeremy coming up with increasingly outlandish schemes to get out of it that Mark could never actually succeed with.
Following Mark's and Sophie's disastrous wedding and separation immediately afterwards, he pursues a series of other women during series 5, wondering whether each could be "the one". After he and Sophie have sex following their breakup, she becomes pregnant and later gives birth to Mark's son.
Mark's only other relationship is with Dobby, whom he meets at JLB shortly after splitting from Sophie. As with Sophie, Mark gradually succeeds in getting closer to Dobby and ultimately entering a relationship with her, but Dobby leaves him at the end of series 8 for a job in New York City. She returns in series 9 with an American boyfriend, a new look and a more upbeat attitude, and Mark becomes less attracted to her as a result.
In the final series he has a fling with April, whom he knew briefly years earlier, who is now unhappily married to a middle-aged man, Angus. Mark tries to poach her, but fails in the show's finale when he allows Jeremy and Super Hans to kidnap Angus and hold him captive in their flat, which she discovers.
Jeremy Usbourne
Jeremy 'Jez' Usbourne is a "work-shy freeloader" who lives in the spare room of Mark's flat. He is selfish, juvenile and arrogant, but considers himself to be immensely talented and attractive. He is confident, but can sometimes come across as spiteful and stubborn. Although more socially skilled than Mark on a superficial level, his over-confidence and narcissism mean that in practice he is equally socially inept.Jez displays a readiness to engage in actions that are detrimental to his friends for his own gain, including ganging up on Mark with a bully, overdosing Mark on paracetamol to save a magic mushroom party and then angrily blaming him for the guests' departure, having sex with Sophie, ruining some of Mark's onscreen relationships or relapsing Super Hans into drug addiction. His relationship with Mark, which is by far the most developed throughout the series, oscillates between mutual, albeit poorly timed demonstrations of unconditional loyalty and acts and thoughts of deep envy and petty vindictiveness. Jeremy shows a tendency to sabotage Mark's romantic and professional life in ways that are sometimes the result of selfish opportunism, but other times appear to be the unwanted outcome of genuine kindness.
Jez attended Dartmouth with Mark and graduated with a degree in nursing. Jez was a nurse for a while, but quit because he was "disgusted at having to help people". He also receives financial support from his mother, despite maintaining an estranged relationship with her. For most of the series, he pursues a musical career with his friend Super Hans, in a band with no consistent name, despite having little musical talent or skill. In later series he claims to become a "life coach", despite having no ability to do that either. As well as being lazy, Jez is financially reckless, never opens his bank statements, and has apparently spent a "nest-egg" given to him by his mother. He is unaware of how bank loans work, he expresses annoyance at the effort taken to travel to the job centre once a week to claim unemployment benefit, and despite Mark's protestations, bizarrely claims that inheriting £20,000 from a great-aunt will make him a "millionaire". Neither the threat or the reality of becoming destitute encourages Jeremy to try and earn money and pay his own way.
Jez is free-spirited, popular with women in the short term, and enjoys recreational drugs as well as casual sex, although he has several emotionally attached relationships. His first major love interest during the series is Nancy, whom he marries in order to allow her to stay in the UK; she leaves him after he admits to having sex with Toni. He later has a fling with Big Suze, whom he split from shortly before the series began. She leaves him when he tries to convince her to have sex with Johnson for money. During series 6, he has a relationship with Elena, during which he discovers that she is in a long-term same-sex relationship with Gail; he later reveals the affair to Gail. In series 7 he has a fling with Zahra, who lives with her partner Ben. After Zahra and Ben separate, Jez resumes his relationship with her, but she leaves him after he attempts to have sex with Super Hans's girlfriend. In series 8, Jeremy discovers he is in love with Dobby and ruins Mark's plan to propose to her, thereby putting a six-month hiatus on their friendship. In series 9, he enters a same-sex relationship with Joe – who is over a decade younger than him. Jez pretends to be a year younger than he is, which leads to Joe leaving him at his 40th birthday party, in the finale.