Landmark TV satire The Day Today has just turned 25 – yes, it's a whole quarter of a century since the comic delights of 'Speak Your Brains', The Bureau ("I'm closing The Bureau... for an hour.") and The Pool ("In 1975, no one died...").
And if you're feeling that, in 2019, the world needs Christopher Morris, Collaterlie Sisters and company back more than ever, you're not alone.
"There are times when I long for us to be doing The Day Today again, because there are things happening where you just wanted to get involved, comically," writer and performer Patrick Marber – who gave us characters including the incompetent news correspondent Peter O'Hanraha-hanrahan – tells Digital Spy.
"I mean, Armando [Iannucci] is consistently satirical and doing great things as one would expect, but there doesn't seem to be anything on TV that quite does what The Day Today did."
Post-The Day Today, Marber went on to write and perform in spin-off Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge. But shortly afterward, he decided to pursue a career as a playwright and made what he calls "a specific choice" to step away from acting.
"I felt I couldn't carry on being a comedy performer and expect to be taken seriously as a playwright. So after I did [Christmas special] Knowing Me, Knowing Yule at the back end of 1995, I decided I was going to have to take a few years off being a comic performer. In the end, I took about 20 years off."
Marber's stage works, including the plays Closer [which he later adapted as a film in 2004] and Don Juan in Soho, have won him rave reviews and a number of illustrious industry awards. He was also nominated for an Oscar in 2006, for his screenplay for psychological thriller Notes on a Scandal.
Now, though, he's keen to perform again – he currently writes and appears alongside Peter Curran in the BBC Radio 4 series Bunk Bed and appeared last year in Russell T Davies's tragi-comic A Very English Scandal.
"If there was a Day Today reunion, I'd passionately want to do it. I don't think there will be! But I feel I've done my serious time now as a playwright and I'd like to do some more comedy."
These days, Marber says he's equally happy to be recognised as the buffoonish Peter O'Hanraha-hanrahan as he is as the man who wrote Closer.
"I really like it! I like that people will approach me in the street and say 'Peter O'Hanraha-hanrahan! What've you been doing for 25 years?' – I tell them I write plays now and they're always a bit disappointed.
"But the people who know me as a playwright often don't know that I was Peter O'Hanraha-hanrahan and they're sort of amazed when they see a tweet or some bit of material crops up.
"So it's nice. I'm very proud of the work we did on The Day Today. It's certainly hasn't impeded anything. It's been only to my advantage, and joy."
Knowing Me, Knowing You – the original radio series – is released on vinyl this Friday and is available to pre-order on Amazon now.
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