Nigel Planer

Nigel George Planer (born 22 February 1953) is a British actor, writer and musician. He played Neil in the BBC comedy The Young Ones and Ralph Filthy in Filthy Rich & Catflap. He has appeared in many West End musicals, including original casts of Evita, Chicago, We Will Rock You, Wicked, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He has also appeared in Hairspray. He won a BRIT award in 1984 and has been nominated for Olivier, TMA, WhatsOnStage and BAFTA awards. Early life Planer's father's Hungarian-Romanian family left Germany in 1933 and settled in Mortlake, London. He established a company, which pioneered technology in controlled-rate freezers, IVF and stem cell research. Nigel has two brothers, and attended King's House School in Richmond and Westminster School in central London, where he wrote a satirical play about the school with fellow pupil Stephen Poliakoff. He began a degree course in African and Asian Studies at the University of Sussex, but dropped out to study acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Career Planer was a founding member of the London Comedy Store and The Comic Strip – pioneers of the alternative comedy movement in the United Kingdom. Planer appeared with Peter Richardson as part of the double act "The Outer Limits". Planer and Richardson also wrote the That's Life! parody on Not the Nine O'Clock News. With Christopher Douglas, he created the spoof actor character "Nicholas Craig", who appears in book, radio, TV and articles as well as live; including, in 2011, in Stewart Lee's At Last! The 1981 Show at the Royal Festival Hall, London, and in 2022 in Nicholas Craig's Podcom. Planer is also the author of several books, plays, radio plays, and TV scripts as well as a small volume of poetry. He was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Arts degree from Edinburgh Napier University in June 2011. Television Planer is best known for his role as Neil, the hippie housemate in the BBC comedy The Young Ones, which ran for two series broadcast in 1982 and 1984. He has starred in The Comic Strip Presents..., a series of short films broadcast from 1982 onwards, on Channel 4.