Nick Frost and Simon Pegg: 9 of our favourite moments

The pair… What? No, what did you say? Sorry? Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson? Come on now. Ok, so where… huh? Will Ferrell and John C Reilly? Are you mad? No, shush, enough now. What was that… Ant and Dec? Get out. No, no more suggestions. It should have been clear that we were very much asking a rhetorical question as an introductory device, because the answer, as far as we’re concerned, is a very significant, no.

Since they first met in the 1990s when Frost was working as a waitress in the same restaurant as Pegg’s then girlfriend, the pair have been near inseparable; firstly as flatmates, and then through starring roles on television and in cinema. In October, they join us at the Southbank Centre to reflect on this enduring friendship and where it’s taken them in a celebration of Frost’s recipe-infused memoir, A Slice of Fried Gold.

The perfect opportunity, née excuse, then for us to get lost down an internet rabbit hole and celebrate their journey through some of our favourite Frost and Pegg moments.

Spaced

Pegg and Frost’s real-life friendship first transferred onto our screens in 1999 with the sit-com Spaced. Co-written by Pegg and Jessica Stevenson and directed by Edgar Wright – a trio who had first come together on the 1996 show Asylum – Spaced centred on the characters of Tim Disley (Pegg) and Daisy Steiner (Stevenson) who having only recently met, pose as a couple in order to secure a flat in North London. Frost plays the role of Pegg’s army obsessed best friend. Across two series of genuine hilarity it’s hard to pick out a single moment, so let us instead just enjoy a blissful wallow in the best of Mike.

Big Train

Whilst Spaced was Frost’s first television role, Pegg had already begun establishing himself on our screens in the mid to late 1990s. As well as appearing in the aforementioned Asylum, he had played the character Jools on ITV sitcom Faith in the Future, and then 1998 he became part of the ensemble cast of the cult sketch comedy show, Big Train. Pegg’s most memorable appearances on the show include a sprinter failing to nail reaction to the starting pistol, a father trying to teach his child to ride a bike, a dedicated member of the Billie Piper fan club, one of the fire brigade bothering showjumpers, and several other sketches which are probably beneath sharing by an established arts centre such as ourselves. We will give you this one before we move on though, in which we discover just how radio presenters get their puns.

Blankety Blank, Children in Need

It’s hard in these multi-channel multi-platform days to convey to younger people just how huge a deal the big BBC telethons once were. Even harder to explain how at one time the prospect of seeing Jeremy Vine in suspenders doing the ‘Time Warp’ was offered as a treat if we did donate, rather than a threat if we didn’t. But not all of the bits used to break up the heartbreaking documentaries and Terry Wogan pointing at a totaliser were quite so scarring. In 2003 a collection of up and coming comedians and comedy actors joined forces to present a brilliant pastiche of 1980s gameshow Blankety Blank. The remarkable ensemble included Peter Serafinowicz (who else could play Wogan so well?), Martin Freeman, Matt Lucas, David Walliams, Sarah Alexander, Kevin Eldon, and Frost and Pegg, as Willie Rushton and Freddie Starr, respectively.

Shaun of the Dead

In 2004 Frost and Pegg made the leap to the big-screen as Pegg and Edgar Wright gave birth to the genre of Zom-Rom-Com with the writing of Shaun of the Dead. As the pair star as two slackers fighting off a zombie invasion, we’re spoilt for brilliant Frost and Pegg moments, from the careful selection of records to hurl at the zombies in their garden to the Queen-soundtracked climactic fight scene, but we’ve gone for an earlier clip that perhaps offers an insight into their lives as flatmates in real life. ‘Nick was the funniest person I knew,’ Pegg told The Guardian in a 2011 interview, and that comes across in this scene as from 1 minute 25 seconds on Frost largely improvises his description of their fellow pub regulars, and Pegg’s laughter is undoubtedly genuine. A quick warning that some of the language used in this clip may not be to everyone’s taste, but if you do hit play, listen out for a debut outing of Frost’s future memoir title.

Man Stroke Woman

Pegg wasn’t the only one of the duo to appear in a much-loved television sketch show. In 2005 Frost was part of the ensemble cast of BBC Three’s Man Stroke Woman. We’ll be frank, not all the show’s sketches have stood the test of time, but the actors’ delivery can’t be faulted, especially Frost, who displays a remarkable penchant for playing authoritative yet bumbling characters, from barristers to doctors.

Hot Fuzz

In 2007 Frost and Pegg reunited on the big screen for another Pegg and Wright film, the second of what would become known as the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy. Set in the fictional West Country village of Sandford, Hot Fuzz threw Pegg and Frost together in a UK take on the US buddy cop film genre in a partnership that was less good cop, bad cop’ and more ‘good cop, not very good cop’. Reviewing the film Empire’s Olly Richards said of the duo that ‘after almost a decade together, they're clearly so comfortable in each other's presence that they feel no need to fight for the punchline, making them terrific company for two hours.’ Praise which is hard to argue with, but also makes it difficult to select a single moment from. But we’ve gone for the shortest ever police chase committed to film.

Star Wars fandom

According to an interview given to Collider in 2011, during the filming for Shaun of the Dead, producer Nira Park expressed frustration at London’s changeable weather. ‘Why can’t you film somewhere it doesn’t rain?’ she asked. That question led to Frost and Pegg pitching the film Paul, in which the duo bump into a surprisingly down to earth alien during a road trip through the Mojave desert in the US. Not only did the film’s location lend itself to consistent filming conditions, but it also allowed the sci-fi obsessed duo – whose initial bonding had come from a shared love of Star Wars – to engage in some suitable sand-based mucking about.

The World’s End

Pegg, Frost and Wright reunited for the third and final film in their Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, The World’s End in 2013, continuing the everyday humdrum meets classic film trope set-up with a hometown pub crawl interrupted by an alien invasion. Again, the film throws up a host of brilliant comedic moments between our favourite duo, but we’ve picked out this briefest of clips chiefly because it highlights something we’ve long believed, that few people play a bumbling drunk quite as well as Frost.

Origin stories and flushing cakes

We’ve already not so subtly hinted not once but twice in this piece as to how Frost and Pegg’s friendship formed and blossomed, but to fill in the details better to hand over to the men themselves. As part of their US promotional tour for Hot Fuzz the pair appeared on chat show Jimmy Kimmel Live! The quality of the footage isn’t the best, but stick with it for some unconventional promotional techniques, a great insight into their early friendship, and an unusual hotel-based pastime.

by Glen Wilson