FOR a downtrodden hippy, Nigel Planer has certainly managed to cram a lot into the past three decades. There's the hit single, a series of starring roles in West End musicals, the revamped children's series The Magic

Roundabout, several novels and the years spent campaigning for fathers' rights, to name just a few.

And that's without mentioning the two historical plays he's written - the second of which, Death of Long Pig, has just begun a month-long run at Chelsea's Finborough Theatre.

But to most of us, of course, he'll always be Neil from cult 80s sitcom The Young Ones. So when he tells me how he has been busy advising producers about wigs, it's impossible not to make comparisons.

The slightly hangdog expression is still there as is the ponderous delivery, but there's clearly much more going on in the mind of this intensely driven father-oftwo than there ever was with his most famous character.

Planer, now 56, is currently starring in Hairspray, the latest in a long run of West End hits in which he has appeared.

But he says the pre-show anxiety is nothing compared with awaiting the verdict on his self-penned plays.

"When you're on stage, at least you get to have the battle with your nerves, whereas with this you just eat yourself up," he explains while tucking into a bowl of watermelon (vegetarian Neil would approve).

Death of Long Pig follows the last days of the artist Paul Gauguin and writer Robert Louis Stevenson, who never met but both died in the Pacific islands of Polynesia around the turn of the 20th Century.

It was inspired by a trip through Central America on an inflatable dinghy with no engine and 'nature all around'.

"That holiday got me thinking, would it be best to die in a romantic setting with no one around or in a hospital bed surrounded by the people who love me?" he says.

"The play's about how we get ready to die, which people spend a lot of time trying to avoid thinking about."

However, the actor insists his play is anything but morbid.

"Hopefully, making it humorous and giving it a historical setting will make it easier for audiences to think about such tragic things," he said.

The former Chelsea houseboat dweller spent the best part of six years researching the play, visiting the final resting places of both men and poring over their letters and diaries.

He claims it was more a case of indulging his passion for history than actually working.

"You spend most of your life competing and trying to achieve things and then there's usually one big event that makes you re-evaluate things. For me it was my messy first divorce," he says.

"I was reading a biography of the famous Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal at the time and I woke up one morning and thought 'this is what I like doing - reading about history'.

"That's going to make me sound very strange, saying Nazi-hunters make me cheerful."

Yes, a little, and it's all a long way from his anarchic days on the alternative comedy scene. In fact, it's impossible not to wonder if he misses it.

"I still look back on The Young Ones very fondly but I don't like the way some people think that because Neil always used to get bullied they can do the same to me," he says.

"It was funny with him - but it's not funny when people see me walking through the park and think it's OK to laugh and point at me."

Does that mean there's no hope of a comeback for the series, then?

"I've always said 'no, what a stupid idea' -until yesterday when I thought if they were all in an old people's home with Alexei (Sayle) as the shark running it, that would be really funny. The Old Ones... yes, I like that."

* Death of Long Pig is at the Finborough Theatre until August 1.