TV actor, poet and writer Nigel Planer talks about forthcoming show at Pocklington Arts Centre

An actor, writer, musician – even a BRIT award-winner- the 71-year-old has pretty much done it all.

But for his forthcoming production at Pocklington Arts Centre, on Saturday October 26, he will perform with Henry Normal, BAFTA Award-winning writer and producer turned poet, to reunite a team that educates, informs but mostly entertains.

Normal’s career spans more than 40 years and includes writing and producing some of the country’s best-loved and critically acclaimed TV programmes and films.

The autumn tour is the first time the pair have taken on a full national tour together, bringing poetry to the people and showcasing their newest work as well as more classic material from their impressive back catalogue.

And it is a show Planer is very much looking forward to.

“It’s a nice, fun show for us and the audience,” he said.

"Henry and I were on tour in the late 80s and early 90s as comedy performance poets, it was strange as we both worked in TV all our careers but never together.

"He’s written The Royal Family, Gavin and Stacey and he’s produced most of Steve Coogan’s work, so he’s a big cheese in TV but his first love is poetry.

"He retired from TV and invited me out on tour again.”

Planer has collected his many years of poetic endeavours into one volume, called Making Other Plans, which is published in reverse order from 2023 to 1970 when he was 17.

"I’ve always written poetry; most people grow out of it but I didn’t, I carried on,” he said.

Both TV veterans will be talking to the audience about their lives with plenty of humour – and you can expect one of Planer’s best-loved characters, the hippy Neil from The Young Ones - to make an appearance.

"I’m always reluctant to milk that [character] any further but Henry said ‘come on, most of the audience want to know about that’ so we’re doing a whole lot on that,” he said.

"At one gig we did the original Neil routine – the character came out of a show I did at the Comedy Strip in 1974 so it had been going for years before The Young Ones.

"We had someone saying it was great to see that and it was almost like he was in the room!

"Between the two of us, Henry and I, what we like to do is two to three poems that are not comical, but might be an attempt at something a bit more than that, not just two poets mumbling into their beards.

"It’s a fun night with a Q&A afterwards, it’ll be like an ‘evening with’ show with a lot of anecdotage, which gives it a bit of spirit and heart.

"Without being too pretentious, it’s the perfect gig as it’s still entertainment-based but you are getting slightly more than you’d get from just a comedy gig.”

Planer is looking forward to performing in the intimate 200-seater venue.

"When we were in a heavy metal spoof band, we played Castle Donington Monsters of Rock festival in front of 60,000 people, so from that down to 200 is a different experience,” he said.

"I really like it because it’s more like a dialogue – the audience is still in the dark but not completely, like if you were in a theatre show.

"So we’re aware of people, if they want to ask any questions, and we’re aware of who finds what funny so you can react to it.

"People feel more part of it in a smaller venue like that.

"We’ll be signing books and selling them at the interval and we get quite a chat going, it’s got a communal feel.”

Looking back on his time filming the anarchic sitcom the Young Ones, which also starred Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmondson and Christopher Ryan as the main characters, Planer said “it wasn’t just a job” – they were working together as a group for around a decade, doing The Comedy Store, a tour of Australia and England, the TV series and a live tour.

Planer has enjoyed a wide and varied career which has seen him perform West End shows, star as Dumbledore in the parody Harry Potter and the Secret Chamber Pot of Azerbaijan and write music and books, as well as his poetry.

He also played Ralph Filthy in Filthy Rich & Catflap and won a BRIT award for his 1984 single Hole in My Shoe (originally a hit for 1960s band Traffic), which reached number two in the charts.

So what’s the standout for him from his many years in the entertainment industry?

“The one I really enjoyed and felt most at home with was Shine on Harvey Moon, a popular comedy drama series set in 1947 in the East End of London with Linda Robson as my fianceé,” he said.

“There’s something about that that reminded me of old school comedy routines.

"It’s the complete opposite of The Young Ones but I was doing that at the same time.

"My Neil wig hid the RAF short back and sides haircut.

"The character in Shine on Harvey Moon, Lou Lewis, was a Cockney wide boy who was completely gormless, a bit like Neil.

"He was a very fast talking Cockney bloke and it was weird doing those contrasting things at the same time.”

Henry Normal and Nigel Planer’s show at Pocklington Arts Centre on October 26 gets under way at 8pm, tickets £18.50.