Interview
Actors who appear in hit sitcoms often have difficulties shaking off the role that makes their name. Beyond The Joke recently wrote about the way that Father Dougal still casts a shadow over Ardal O'Hanlon's work. But Martin Freeman has had no such issues. I doubt if that many people still think of him primarily as Tim from The Office these days. Even though that was a major role in a landmark series Freeman has recently shaken Tim off with starring parts in The Hobbit movies and BBC1's Sherlock.
I came across my interview with Benedict Cumberbatch from The Times, November 2007, in my archive and thought it might be of some interest. Back then Cumberbatch was a fast-rising star of stage and screen rather than the all-conquering superstar he is today. I'll always remember the first time I spotted him – it was when I watched him playing Stephen Hawking in a BBC drama in 2004.
I don't know if they have a secret installation hidden somewhere underground in America where they keep turning out brilliant comedians, but Bill Burr (picture by Koury Angelo) is the latest superb stand-up heading for the UK in the footsteps of Rob Delaney, Paul F Tompkins and Susie Essman. And, of course, Louis CK. In fact an article in Rolling Stone recently anointed the seasoned 45-year-old Bostonian as the "New Louis CK".
Update 3/1/14. As we say below, 2014 looks like being a good year for Nick Helm. His BBC3 series Uncle starts later this month and he has just been nominated for The Times South Bank Breakthrough Award? You can vote for him here.
Stephen Merchant's new sitcom, Hello Ladies, in which he plays lonely Brit Stuart Pritchard looking for love in LA, is on Sky Atlantic on Wednesdays at 10pm from October 16. You can read more about it here. I interviewed Merchant recently for the Independent on Sunday. He was in LA having just had brunch, I was in South London with Crocodile Dundee on ITV in the background.
I've interviewed Rik Mayall a few times and he was probably just as odd before his major quad bike crash as after it. This interview dates from 2003, five years after his accident, and while the chat was supposed to be about the live tour of Bottom with Ade Edmondson, the head injury that nearly killed him was still, no pun intended, on his mind. Mayall is about to return to our screens as the dad of Greg Davies in the new sitcom Man Down, which starts on C4 on October 18.
Danny Wallace is a journalist and TV presenter and for a while he shared a flat with comedian Dave Gorman. Then one day in the late 1990s he made a drunken wager with Gorman, betting him that he couldn't find lots of other Dave Gormans. Gorman rose to the challenge and as a result the acclaimed show Are You Dave Gorman? was born. Wallace later wrote the 2005 book, Yes Man, based on his idea of saying "yes" to everything for six months, which he doggedly carried out. Yes Man was turned into a Hollywood movie starring Jim Carrey.
The eternal quest for the perfect primetime mainstream sitcom continues with Father Figure, the TV transfer of Jason Byrne's hit madcap radio series about his eccentric clan. Byrne plays well-meaning but hopeless Tom Whyte, "the best and worst dad you could have". It's about time he got his TV break and I hope he can bring some of the freewheeling excitement of his live gigs to the small screen. Byrne is a truly spontaneous performer onstage.
Just before the Edinburgh Fringe started I interviewed Seann Walsh for The Independent on Sunday on the ups and downs of drinking. Walsh has something of a reputation as an imbiber.
Is it really eight years since I interviewed Reece Shearsmith? Eight years since the League of Gentlemen's movie came out? This interview originally ran in the Evening Standard to coincide with The League of Gentlemen's big screen debut, and also Shearsmith's appearance as Jaques in As You Like It at Wyndham's Theatre.
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