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Nicholas Smith explained it at the AETN PBS event in Arkansas:
"During a break from the series, Trevor was offered a job doing something else. The BBC thinking that there would be no more series of AYBS told him he could pursue the offer to appear in a play. Shortly after, at the request of many people expressing interest in AYBS, the BBC decided to continue the show. Trevor could not return since he was committed to the play."
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Nicholas Smith explained it at the AETN PBS event in Arkansas:
"During a break from the series, Trevor was offered a job doing something else. The BBC thinking that there would be no more series of AYBS told him he could pursue the offer to appear in a play. Shortly after, at the request of many people expressing interest in AYBS, the BBC decided to continue the show. Trevor could not return since he was committed to the play."
Thanks for your post, do you have a link to this interview with Nicholas Smith? I'd really like to watch it.
Trevor also has his own interview where he describes exactly what happened. Trevor tried hard to make it work so that he could do both theatre and season 8 of AYBS at the same time, but the BBC kept changing their production schedule back and forth.
Trevor even convinced his theatre company to change the touring dates so he would be in the right place to rehearse and film season 8 of AYBS.
The BBC kept 'messing about' and changing their production schedules, and so eventually Trevor had enough and told them "no". Trevor was being paid well over 10 times more in salary by the theatre company, and the theatre was giving him 20 weeks of work vs the 6 weeks it took to do AYBS.
