Aged twenty-five, dressed as Che Guevara, Nigel Planer answers an ad for a room and his life changes for ever.

Both a memoir and a love story, Young Once follows his journey, from bell-ringer to gravedigger, from university dropout to long-term patient of the Hospital for Tropical Diseases and all the other bizarre events that shape him, until the day he meets Alexei Sayle, Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson in a former strip club and the 1980s Comedy Revolution is born . . .

Often mistaken (even by his mother) for Neil, the hippy character he creates, by 1986 Nigel has become so well-known he often has to leave the house via the kitchen window. It’s lucky that he has always had a talent for seeing the funny side of things: whether it’s dealing with 20-foot-eclair-related injuries or being cajoled into Band Aid by Bob Geldof; gatecrashing a rave with Robin Williams or crashing into the set on Top of the Pops; becoming a grandfather at twenty-nine or being rescued from disaster by musical theatre.

Against a backdrop of squats, Glastonbury and roller discos, with a supporting cast that includes Lemmy, a stony-faced Robert de Niro and French and Saunders, Young Once is a wildly entertaining and gloriously sideways glimpse into a remarkable life and career. It’s also an object lesson in why you should never give up looking for your Happy Ever After. It might well turn out to be right in front of you.

Author Biography

Nigel Planer is a comedian and actor, best known for his creation of characters such as ‘Neil the Hippy’ from the iconic ’80s series The Young Ones, and the pretentious actor Nicholas Craig of the ‘Naked Actor’ Masterclass series. Starring in many TV shows (from The Comic Strip Presents to Filthy Rich & Catflap, Blackadder to Blackeyes, and Shine on Harvey Moon to Inside Number 9), West End musicals (Wicked to Chicago) and voicing Terry Pratchett ‘ s Discworld books, Nigel has also written novels, plays, poetry and scripts, including over 100 episodes of The Magic Roundabout for Channel 4.

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