AS a schoolboy, David Nobbs used to catch the 8.16 from Orpington to Chislehurst in Kent every weekday. Each morning he would see the same men in the same suits with the same briefcases and the same newspapers.

Many years later – after Cambridge, National Service, training as a journalist with the Sheffield Star and writing for That Was The Week That Was – Nobbs was invited to submit a comedy script to the BBC for a series of six plays. Inspired by a newspaper story about a group of executives trying to decide on a new flavour of jam, he knitted together the tedious lives of the jam men with the older images of the bored commuters on the 8.16.

Fortunately for Nobbs, at that stage the idea was rejected. Still convinced that he was on to something, the writer went on to produce three best-selling novels about Reginald Perrin, which were to become top-rated TV series in 21 episodes aired between 1976 and 1979.

The name Reginald was taken from Reginald Maudling, his local MP; Perrin was the surname of a boy at his prep school. And so Reginald Iolanthe Perrin was born as a fully-formed 40-something in the throes of a mid-life crisis. Nobbs could not have known how Reggie's plight would speak to the nation.

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The fully realised character of the man who is appalled and frustrated by the bland soullessness of the 9 to 5 and infuriated by the predictability of his life in general struck a chord that went way beyond bored commuters of the South-East.

Nobbs wanted Ronnie Barker to play Reggie in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. But Barker was busy, and anyway the BBC were keen to poach Leonard Rossiter from ITV, where he was attracting huge audiences for Rising Damp.

Rossiter portrayed Reggie superbly as a man creeping ever closer to the edge, capable of being kind and charming but also selfish and increasingly determined to escape the daily grind and his lovely hausfrau wife Elizabeth. He would vanish, leaving a pile of clothes on a beach, then re-enter as a new version of himself. Perhaps this spawned many male fantasies about "doing a Reggie".

The show was recorded before a live audience who lapped it up. Nobbs knew he had a hit on his hands when he stood outside the lifts at the Dragonara Hotel in Leeds, listening to two men spouting lines from the show, including the oft-used words of Reggie's boss CJ: "I didn't get where I am today by hanging around here waiting for a lift." This and "There's been a cock-up on the catering front..." have passed into the language and stayed put.

Almost 30 years after the screening of the last series in 1979, Nobbs was approached by independent company Objective Productions to resuscitate Reggie for the noughties. The BBC were keen, and Nobbs could see the logic. "The more I thought about it and talked to other people, it became apparent that the stresses of commuting, the strain of being in mid-life and the feeling of 'Is this it? ' were, if anything, worse now than back then.

"We aren't making the new shows topical, but the credit crunch has come along and it means, I suppose, that some people will feel they have to stick with jobs they hate and feel trapped in because they need to pay the bills... So I guess that does help to make the show even more relevant."

Once the BBC agreed the commission, the new incarnation of Reginald Perrin quickly started to take shape. North Yorkshire-based David Nobbs, now 73, was not sure, though, that he wanted to carry the can for writing all six episodes by himself.

"I've been living in the country for 16 years, away from modern offices and the jargon and detail of everyday workplace life," he says. "I felt I'd like to write with someone else, and Simon Nye was suggested. I'd followed and enjoyed his work, including Men Behaving Badly, and thought it would work.

"He was a great fan of the old Reginald Perrin series, but wasn't in thrall to it. I imagine he was pretty daunted to begin with, stepping into something that had been so great before. But his ideas have been fantastic.

"We have the same pattern of characters as in the original, but I've been working to a template and ideas created by Simon, which is a bit strange yet seems to work. I also do a lot of the writing, and we send material back and forth to each other. At first it was very hard getting back into Reggie's head after all these years, and sloughing off the original style to write for 2009. But it's got easier as time's gone on. The new series is more like a sitcom."

In 2009, Reginald Perrin works for a male grooming products company. Many details are different to the original, but
Reggie still has a rich imaginary life, and there's obviously a woman who feeds his fantasy of having an affair. Nobbs says the new scripts are not so focused on the repetition of catchphrases.

Leonard Rossiter died 25 years ago, but the question of who could fill his considerable shoes didn't hang in the air for long. The BBC were looking for a new vehicle for Martin Clunes, in between his ongoing commitments to hit drama series Doc Martin.

"When he read the scripts, Martin instantly came back with a yes, and now I can't imagine anyone else in the part," says Nobbs. "He's very different from Leonard. He gives us a warmer character, not so close to the edge. He has his own way and
it's equally truthful and equally funny."

The last of the six episodes has just been recorded in front of a studio audience, and with the laughter ringing in their ears, Nobbs says BBC executives have made "extravagant statements of delight," which bodes well for a recommission.

As often happens, there came a moment during rehearsals of episode five when the actors, including Clunes, Fay Ripley (who plays his wife) and Wendy Craig as Reggie's mother, said they had problems with the script and the motivation of the characters.

"They had a point, and the best way of dealing with it is not to stand there arguing about how it should be done, with them writing things on bits of paper, but just to disappear and write another version. It was soon sorted out, and they were right."

His job is done, so how are the nerves holding up? "Naturally you're nervous, reprising a cult show. It is a scary thing to reinvent it, as people have such fond memories of the best bits of the old shows. I know it's good. What I can't know is whether it's good enough. It's a lot better than some rotten old sitcoms, but it has to be more than that with the people who liked the old show. I'm hopeful but cautious."

As any fan will know, there's a whole lot more to David Nobbs than Reggie Perrin. There's his acclaimed series A Bit Of A Do for Yorkshire Television, other series such as Rich Tea and Sympathy, an adaptation for TV of Jonathan Coe's 1980s satire What a Carve Up!, and many original works and adaptations for radio. Oh, and 16 comic novels including the Henry Pratt series.

A 17th novel, as yet in want of a title, is due to be published soon. "It's the third book I've done that I've not been able to find a title for – and the others were very successful and two of my favourites – Second From Last in the Sack Race and Going Gently. I think not being able to give it a title at this stage is a good thing."

It's the story of childhood sweethearts who make the
wrong decisions and don't marry each other. Each goes through two unhappy marriages before they are reunited 25 years later. Nobbs describes it as "a humanist novel".

"It's about having a meaningful life without any belief in God. I don't believe you need belief in any overall purpose to lead a good and rewarding life, and that's the serious theme beneath the comedy."

The exercise of writing gets easier and the flow of ideas
thicker with each passing year, says the writer, who relaxes by playing dominoes in the local pub and "enjoying dry Yorkshire wit".

"When I started out, I didn't know what to write about, but
now the list is endless – things I hate or love about the world, things I want for the world... There isn't time to write them all. I might write rubbish, but I doubt I'll ever suffer from writer's block."

David Nobbs hasn't got where he is today without a reasonable sense of his his own worth. If he is cautiously optimistic about Reggie, then the chances are that Perrin will rise and rise again.



The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin will be shown on BBC1 later this year.