| Description | Rank was a theatre show created by Peter Richardson and Nigel Planer and starring Nigel Planer, Peter Richardson and Caroline Jay.
Rank featured various elements Richardson and Planer would later use in their double act, The Outer Limits. In particular, Planer’s bad folksinger character Neil first featured in this show, before becoming part of The Outer Limits’ act, and then the character 'Neil' in The Young Ones. One of Richardson’s characters in Rank also cropped up again in The Outer Limits, and another of Planer’s Rank characters turned up in a Comic Strip film. |
| Admin history | Nigel Planer was born in 1953 in Westminster, London. He attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, where he met and began working with Peter Richardson (British director and comedian). His career in comedy began in 1976 with a tour of a comedy rock show called Rank, which he wrote with Peter Richardson. Nigel Planer was a founding member of the London Comedy Store and an original memebr of the Comic Strip, pioneers of the Alternative Comedy scene in the 1980s. Nigel Planer is well known for the seminal TV series The Young Ones and The Comic Strip Presents. He continues to work as an actor and writer in tv, theatre, film, music and radio. Nigel Planer has also written a number of books and plays, and won a BRIT award in 1984, as well as being nominated for Olivier, TMA, WhatsOnStage and BAFTA awards. |