Mark and Jeremy were the pair of losers we loved to laugh with (OK, at) on Channel 4’s Peep Show, and they gave us some of British TV’s funniest lines. 

Played by David Mitchell and Robert Webb, we followed the dysfunctional flatmates for nine hilariously awkward seasons until it finished in 2015. The show also introduced us to Oscar-winning actor Olivia Colman, who played Sophie, and renowned comedian Isy Suttie, who starred as Dobby.

After several false starts, the comedy is getting a US remake with female protagonists, and the lead cast has finally been revealed.

Minnie Driver is set to play an emotionally unstable tech entrepreneur, with Amandla Jahava starring as her long-suffering assistant. 

The pilot has been written and produced by showrunner Stefani Robinson, who previously worked on shows like Atlanta and What We Do In The Shadows, while original Peep Show writers Jesse Armstrong (who’s now better known as the showrunner of a certain little show called Succession) and Sam Bain will be serving as executive producers on the project. Yana Gorskaya will be on directing duties. 

Sharing the news on Instagram, Driver hailed the original Channel 4 series as “comedy gold”, writing: “I grew up watching it. OK, I was 32.”

“The great thing about this reimagining is that it comes from the genius brain that is @stefanirobinson… AND that it is being directed by @y_gorskaya who has actual funny bones,” she added.

The gender-swapped reboot has been in the works for years, with writer Bain previously suggesting that it will explore the “sick and twisted bulls**t [that] goes on inside the minds of a pair of female losers”. 

“It feels just as important for audiences to see women on screen fall on their face – literally and figuratively – as to see them being high achievers doing great things,” he wrote in a piece for The Guardian in 2019. From Absolutely Fabulous and Fleabag to Bridesmaids and Chewing Gum, there are few things more enjoyable than watching a first-rate comic actress being allowed to make a total tit of herself.”

Reflecting on the female characters he wrote for the UK version, the writer also said that he had a “twinge of regret” about creating Sophie as Mark’s love interest.

“We tried to amp her up by bringing out the more extreme sides of her character,” he wrote. “And when it came to creating Dobby, played by Isy Suttie, we tried hard to make her weirder and more distinctive.”

Beyond the two leads, details of the reboot are scarce, but we can’t wait to see what this twist on one of our all-time favourite comedies will bring… 

Images: Channel 4; Getty; BBC