30 minSeason 1 • Episode 6
LatestRay rashly allows two schoolboys to write and edit an issue and quickly finds himself in court on a charge of obscenity.
Hippies is a 1999 BBC Two comedy miniseries created by Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews, and written by Mathews. The six-episode series stars Simon Pegg, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Sally Phillips, and Darren Boyd as four wannabe hippies in 1969 swinging London, who run a counterculture magazine and strive to be as trendy as society will allow... even if they fail at every turn.
Writing
Linehan & Mathews at peak absurdity—every line is a trapdoor
Acting
Pegg's desperate Ray, constantly out-hippied by his own incompetence
Production
Gloriously cheap 60s London that looks like a student film on purpose
Creators
Graham Linehan, Arthur Mathews
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This was Graham Linehan's follow-up to Father Ted, made when he and Mathews were arguably the hottest writing team in British comedy. It flopped so hard it barely got repeated for years.
The show ruthlessly mocks the 'radical chic' phenomenon that Susan Sontag identified—decades before Instagram activists made it painfully relevant again. These hippies are influencers before influencers existed.
GB
