Extra Peeps

2010, 40 minutes

Samuel Pepys in 2010

Sam Peeps has until recently been a Professor of History at a London University. He is also relatively well known for his books, ‘The Metatarsal of the Monarchy’ being the most recent. He gave in his resignation in the summer of 2009, partly because it had become clear that he had had a brief affair with one of the more junior members of the Department, but also because he had found himself at odds with a number of his colleagues. The thinking behind his work had been challenged by them. However academic his material might be, Peeps has constantly attempted to sex it up. It has never been sexy enough however to get him a TV programme that he so dearly wants. For years, he had yearned for a bigger limelight than the one that his role at the university provided while he watched his colleagues find their way into the media. When approached by Jonathan Burridge to front and co write a series about his namesake, it felt like the time had come to make his move. ‘Samuel Pepys’ London’ is of course a perfect vehicle for him but was probably only offered to him, after the great and the good had rejected it, on the basis of the novelty factor of him sharing a name with his subject.

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