INTERVIEW: Alternative comedy pioneer talks The Comic Strip and The Young Ones ahead of Morecambe show

An alternative comedy pioneer has spoken about the groundbreaking The Comic Strip Presents TV shows and why he wasn't part of The Young Ones.

Director, screenwriter and comedy actor Peter Richardson will take questions at a screening of the classic '80s alternative comedy series which starred himself, Rik Mayall, Ade Edmondson, Nigel Planer, French and Saunders, Alexei Sayle, Robbie Coltrane and many other comic icons.

This will be held at Reel Cinema as part of the Morecambe Film and TV Festival on Friday, November 15 from 7pm.

The Comic Strip Presents...Five Go Mad in Dorset, a spoof of Enid Blyton's Famous Five books co-written by Richardson, was famously screened on the opening night of Channel 4 in 1982. 

The series continued on Channel 4 until 1988, before moving to the BBC, returned for specials over the years, and is enduringly popular for its hard-hitting political brand of comedy including episodes such as 'The Strike' and 'The Supergrass'.

LISTEN to our interview with Peter Richardson.

Richardson also starred alongside Mayall, Edmondson and Planer as the spoof rock band Bad News, who ended up actually performing for real in front of 70,000 heavy metal fans at Donnington Park in 1986!

The Comic Strip series began after Richardson founded The Comic Strip, a collective of young alternative comedians who revolutionised TV comedy in the early 1980s.

Peter had previously been performing with Nigel Planer as a double act, and created Planer's iconic character of the hippy Neil from the anarchic BBC series The Young Ones.

He also wrote The Young Ones character of Mike with himself in mind for the role, but it instead was played by Christopher Ryan. 

"I actually wrote Mike, and I wrote Neil as well," he said.

"I wasn't really into sitcom, I don't think I could have done it. I'm probably too serious, to be honest. I think I would have been rubbish as Mike, so I'm quite happy not to have done it."

The Q&A with Richardson in Morecambe on Friday will be hosted by Beyond Radio's Phill Hayward.

The first Morecambe Film and TV Festival has been organised by Matt Panesh, the poet and performer who is also the driving force behind the Morecambe Poetry Festival and Morecambe Fringe. Matt also co-hosts the Decadent Airwaves poetry show on Beyond Radio.

The festival is working alongside the annual Bay International Film Festival, with both events taking place in the town in November.