Hugh Bonneville: BBC2 mockumentary W1A to return in 2015

THE GUARDIAN
Tara Conlan
theguardian.com, Monday 15 September 2014 08.00 EDT



Hugh Bonneville has signed up to reprise his role as Ian Fletcher in the second series of BBC's acclaimed mockumentary W1A. Photograph: BBC/Jack Barnes
BBC mockumentary W1A is to return for a second series next year with Hugh Bonneville’s head of values, Ian Fletcher, facing the thorny issue of the corporation’s charter renewal.

Downton Abbey star Bonneville has signed up for another outing of the follow-up to writer John Morton’s acclaimed Olympics comedy Twenty Twelve.

The new four-part series of W1A will begin with a 60-minute episode, followed by three 30-minute ones. It is being produced by BBC in-house comedy.

After the success of the first series of W1A – which featured BBC presenter Clare Balding and creative director Alan Yentob and drew 1.6 million viewers for its opening episode on BBC2 – the corporation was keen to let the cameras into New Broadcasting House for a second time.

Further casting details, storylines and cameos are still being discussed.

Jessica Hynes and Olivia Coleman, fleetingly, reprised their Twenty Twelve roles in W1A. There was speculation that BBC director general Tony Hall – referred to as “Tonyship, Lord director general” in the show – might appear in future episodes.

The BBC said in a statement on Monday: “Until the cameras roll it won’t be known exactly what crisis will be averted or indeed where Ian’s desk will be.”

However, in the second series there is an indication that charter renewal will be covered as the BBC added that “with charter renewal in 2016 getting ever closer, Ian’s job as Chair of the Way Ahead Task Force will be even more important than ever”.

READ MORE HERE: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/sep/15/bbc-mockumentary-w1a-return-hugh-bonneville

Hugh Bonneville: GOLD FOR HUGH’S OLYMPICS (EXPRESS CO. UK) By Clare Heal

(I really hope this series comes back somehow!  and I want Ian and Sally to get together!!! - Karen)


What was it like behind the scenes though? For all its glitz, I imagine not dissimilar to Twenty Twelve (BBC2, Tuesday). This fantastic mockumentary came to an end with an episode entitled Loose Ends. We joined Head of Deliverance Ian (Hugh Bonneville) and his team 18 days before the Olympics were kicked off but just 10 days before they were due to hand over to the Live team.

The loose ends they had to tie up included the fears that Danny Boyle’s fireworks might trigger the ground-to-air missiles put in place for security, that the slow-charge eco cars would all have run out of battery by day two and that there were only two volunteers for a specially commissioned peal of bells.

In an impressive cast including Olivia Colman as Ian’s devoted secretary Sally and Morven Christie as the fantastically passive-aggressive Fi, it was Jessica Hynes’s objectionable

Head of Brand Siobhan Sharpe who stole the show. “What I do here is repurpose this whole thing...” she said, turning the bell ringing into a celebrity judged contest called The Big Bong.

There were personal loose ends too but a cut to black and the credits denied us a denouement of Ian and Sally’s will-they-won’t-they saga. I can never make up my mind whether I think this is clever and subtle or a dramatic cop-out but here I hope it might herald another series.

This sort of faux-reality format is hardly original but writer-director John Morton has a deft touch, keeping the blunders just the right side of farce.

In fact, with buses getting lost on their way to the Olympic Park and the wrong Korean flag being hoist, he could have gone a lot further and still remained less ridiculous than real life.

Twenty Twelve has been one of this year’s best sit-coms so there was really no contest when it came to Games-themed drollery. Absolutely Fabulous: Olympics (BBC1, Monday) deserved no medals for comedy.

READ THE WHOLE OLYMPICS ARTICLE: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/335880/Gold-for-Hugh-s-Olympics

Twenty Twelve, BBC Two, review Benjamin Secher reviews the return of BBC Two's spoof Olympics comedy Twenty Twelve. (TELEGRAPH) By Benjamin Secher 11:00PM BST 10 Jul 2012

Twenty Twelve (BBC Two), the pitch-perfect Bafta-nominated mockumentary set in the fictional offices of the Olympic Deliverance Committee, serves as a sort of pressure release valve for that anxiety, a very British invitation to laugh off the underlying dread that the Games might flop, even as the big moment approaches. It imagines a scenario in which the organisers are a bunch of jargon-spouting, dunderheaded, squabbling, inefficient, unprofessional – yet sympathetic – nincompoops; less a nest of vipers than a squadron of sloths.

Last night’s episode, the first in a final run of three, began with the long-suffering Head of Deliverance, Ian Fletcher (Downton Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville), calling his ragtag team to a breakfast meeting. “There are still a lot of things to get through if July 27th is to happen, on time, as planned,” intoned David Tennant's unwaveringly deadpan voice-over. Fletcher, his Play-Doh features squashed into a mask of concern, looked like he was going to be sick.


Ordered by the boss to “get ahead of the Games”, his staff duly went charging off down various blind alleys. Kay Hope (Amelia Bullmore), Head of Sustainability, could be found trying to convince the owner of Dagenham and Redbridge Football Club to take on the post-games lease of the giant Olympic stadium as an attempt to secure “exactly the kind of sustainably inclusive shared future we all want to see going forward”. The football guy pulled a face, then cut through the officialese. “At some point,” he said, “you’ve got to ask yourself, have we got a bloody great turkey on our hands?”



READ MORE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/9390330/Twenty-Twelve-BBC-Two-review.html

Hugh Bonneville and co on the return of the London 2012 mockumentary "It's a critique of social incompetence, but all the scripts have their roots in credibility" Written By Alison Kervin 12:50 PM, 10 July 2012 (RADIO TIMES)

"If you get bandwidth on this, you’ve got maple syrup on your waffle at the get-go,” says Siobhan Sharpe, Head of Brand for the London 2012 Olympics. She runs her hands through her hair, smiles to herself, and looks over at her colleagues as if she’s just said something profound and life-changing. They look back at her as if she’s stark raving mad. The truth is that no one ever understands what Sharpe’s talking about. It’s hard to imagine she understands what she’s talking about herself.

I’m on the set of BBC2’s award-winning comedy Twenty Twelve, which returns for a three-part special this month, leading up to the Games. The mockumentary-style sitcom owes its success to clever, well-observed scripts by John Morton that blend the utterly insane with the entirely believable, and a cast who portray beautifully the madness and potential jeopardy involved in organising a major event.

Indeed, so close to the truth about Locog (the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games) has the show come that it has been suggested that writer/director John Morton has a mole in the committee feeding him true stories. The show even had a storyline about the Olympic clock breaking down, just as the real Olympic clock broke down.


“No. Honestly, it’s all made up,” says Morton. “The clock thing was luck! I’m flattered that people think I might have guys inside feeding me lines, because presumably that means they think the show is realistic… but I don’t… not at all.”

The first three episodes of the show were screened to Locog at a breakfast meeting in a London hotel. “I assured them that I didn’t have spies in the camp and that I have gone out of my way to make sure that the characters aren’t based on real people. I’ve created titles that don’t exist, like Head of Deliverance. Everything is to one side of the real world. The show isn’t about the Olympic Games, it's about human beings trying to interact and make things happen.”


READ MORE: http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2012-07-10/twenty-twelve---hugh-bonneville-and-co-on-the-return-of-the-london-2012-mockumentary

Hugh Bonneville, Star of the Olympics Comedy ‘Twenty Twelve’ By KATHRYN SHATTUCK Published: June 22, 2012 (NEW YORK TIMES)

TWO years ago Hugh Bonneville was just another hard-working British actor whose plummy vowels and cherubic cheeks lent themselves to characters good (Bernie, the stockbroker who never gets the girl in “Notting Hill”) and not so good (Henleigh Grandcourt, the aristocrat who sends the girl fleeing in “Daniel Deronda”).

Then he crisped his consonants and stiffened his upper lip to portray Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham, the lord of the manor in “Downton Abbey,” the “Masterpiece” megahit on PBS. And hearts around the world swooned.

In “Twenty Twelve,” to have its United States premiere on BBC America on Thursday at 9 p.m., Mr. Bonneville trades his Savile Row tailcoat and red spencer jacket for spandex gym shorts and slept-in trousers — all while keeping a straight face — to play Ian Fletcher, the beleaguered head of the Olympic Deliverance Commission. The mockumentary series won the 2011 British Comedy Award for best TV sitcom.

 In a recent phone interview from London, Mr. Bonneville spoke with Kathryn Shattuck about the convergence of fiction and reality, and becoming an international sensation at 48. These are excerpts from their conversation:


READ THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERVIEW HERE:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/24/arts/television/hugh-bonneville-star-of-the-olympics-comedy-twenty-twelve.html?_r=1

Hugh Bonneville: BBC America to air Olympics mockumentary 'Twenty Twelve' features Bonneville, Colman By JON WEISMAN (VARIETY)

BBC America will air a mockumentary series depicting preparations for this year's Olympic Games in London and starring Hugh Bonneville ("Downton Abbey").




"Twenty Twelve," which will feature Bonneville, Olivia Colman ("Tyrannosaur"), Amelia Bullmore, Vincent Franklin, Jessica Hynes and Karl Theobald, will have 12 halfhour episodes on BBC America beginning June 30. David Tennant ("Doctor Who") is the narrator.


READ MORE:  http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118052854?refCatId=14

Hugh Bonneville: Fun and games: Deadline looms to appease the Algerians in Twenty Twelve (MIRROR)

The BBC mockumentary that gave the world the superb word “multiculturality” continues this week, with a looming deadline to appease the Algerians. They want the Olympic Village’s Shared Belief Centre to face Mecca, and Ian Fletcher (Hugh Bonneville) must find a way to make this happen without appearing to be giving one religion special treatment.

Happily, there’s no PR crisis so bad that it can’t be made much worse by Head Of Brand Siobhan (Jessica Hynes) lumbering in.

One of tonight’s most enjoyable performances comes from “Emergency Architect” Mike Whittaker (Neil Edmond) who, as David Tennant’s voiceover tells us, has spent “the last four years of his personal life” constructing the Olympic village and is now just one retractable minaret away from succumbing to a total nervous breakdown.

BBC AMERICA, please show this in America - please




READ MORE:  http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/staying-in/what-s-on-tv/twenty-twelve-782983