News about Hugh Laurie

Blackadder was nearly cancelled after its first season because the BBC didn't realise its potential, it was claimed yesterday. The show's producer John Lloyd urged TV bosses to give more series a second chance, arguing creative programmes rarely 'get it right first time'. Mr Lloyd, who also worked on Spitting Image and Not The Nine O'Clock News, said broadcasters had become too afraid to say 'have another go' - instead binning shows that aren't an immediate hit. Mr Lloyd, 72, revealed Blackadder's budget was cut 'to the bones' to avoid it being scrapped. The first series won an international Emmy but the second was briefly cancelled by Michael Grade - then BBC One controller - who said it had not attracted enough domestic viewers.

Tom Hiddleston reunited with his co-star Hugh Laurie to film The Night Manager's second series in Richmond-upon-Thames on Wednesday. The Thor star, 43, was in high spirits as he joined the House star to resume work on the thrilling BBC show. Tom cut a casual figure as he flashed a brief smile to his co-star Hugh during filming, after fans were delighted by the news that The Night Manager would be returning.

Richard Roper is set to make a shock return in the second series of The Night Manager - eight years on from the explosive season one finale. The notorious arms dealer, portrayed by Hugh Laurie, was last seen at the end of the BBC One thriller's first series being forcibly taken away, seemingly to face his demise. A source commented on his unexpected return and told The Sun: 'Everyone was working on the basis he'd been killed in series one, so this will come as a pleasant surprise.

Their high sugar content may not win them any prizes for health but that hasn't stopped Crunchy Nut corn flakes being voted Britain's favourite cereal. The breakfast staple - which adds honey, molasses and peanuts to regular corn flakes - was created at the Kellogg's factory in Trafford Park, Manchester, in 1980. They were an immediate hit with consumers, with sales in the first three months three times higher than expected. Forty-four years on they have topped a poll of our best-loved cereals, with 35 per cent of 2,000 shoppers placing them first when they were asked to list their breakfast time favourites. In second place on 28 per cent came the original Corn Flakes, invented in the late 1800s in the US by William Kellogg.

Modern mums and dads, bored youngsters in a rural village or unlikely flatmates in their twenties, there are plenty of quirky characters to get to know in classic TV sitcoms. So our critics have selected some of the best of them to watch On Demand right now - sifting through hundreds of options to save you the bother. Can't decide what to watch tonight? Read on to find out which sitcoms will keep you laughing...

The BBC has announced hit drama The Night Manager will return eight years on from the explosive season one finale and fans on social media have celebrated the news with one claiming it was the 'best news they've read all day'. Inspired by the characters in John le Carré's best-selling novel, the first series won multiple BAFTAs , Emmy Awards, and Golden Globes and was watched by more than 10 million viewers, making it one of 2016's most watched TV shows.

Tom Hiddleston has revealed details about the much anticipated return of BBC's The Night Manager as well as Hugh Laurie possibly reprising his role as arms dealer and villain Dickie Roper.  It was confirmed this week that multi-award winning BBC spy thriller would be back for two more series, following the explosive season one finale in 2016. Now Tom, 43, has said the battle to 'get the story right' was the reason it had taken such a long time to return to the screen. 

It's all happening in British and Irish television, with big-budget John Le Carney, Cockney obsters, and murder in Calder Valley. We've compiled a list of the 20 best thrillers to watch On Demand right now, sifting through thousands of options to save you the hassle. Looking for a new series to stream? Find out which shows it's worth investing your time in...

EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Westminster Abbey giants have decided to return a sacred tabot (a symbolic tablet) to the Ethiopian church, which was looted by British troops in 1868. The HRH's vast Royal Collection of art, jewelry, furniture, decorative arts, and costume is the world's biggest private collection of treasures, and it includes several dubiously acquired treasures. Queen Victoria even arranged a special exhibition to commemorate items confiscated from monarchs that had been overthrown by her troops.

On New Years Eve, a bar refused to pour a five-year-old girl apple juice in a champagne flute, with the manager alerting her parents that it was 'not a good look.' Dr Renée Hoenderkamp, the television doctor, made the request to the waiter at Bull & Bush in Hampstead, north London, so that her daughter could attend the festivities around 7 p.m. However, the NHS doctor claims that a bartender at the gastropub told her 'it could make her drink alcohol but it is not a good look' and that it's not a good look,' and instead served it in a tumbler. According to the restaurant host, she reached a decision about her abilities as a parent and that the call made "no sense." Dr. Hoenderkamp said she had brought a lawsuit because she had been using a local bar for many years and would not go back to it.

Thanks to its acclaimed source material, a new Netflix adaptation is causing a lot of buzz among fans. Readers of the Pulitzer Prize-winning historical drama All The Light We Cannot See posted their excitement on social media this week after the streaming company revealed the first full-length trailer for the miniseries of the same name. Mark Ruffalo and Hugh Laurie appear in major roles, as well as the well-known German actors Louis Hofmann and Lars Eidinger, as part of Shawn Levy's show.

Damian Lewis knows exactly what he's getting into here. 'It's just what the world needs—another film by an actor,' says the film actor, drably, of his debut as a singer-songwriter.' With fellow thespians Kiefer Sutherland, Hugh Laurie, Jeff Goldblum, and Scarlett Johansson all having recorded albums in recent years - and Johnny Depp seems to have the most happiest with a guitar in his hands - he has a point. Lewis, 52, who appeared in Homeland and Steve McQueen in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, is moving into music with honorable intentions, and Mission Creep is nothing like a vanity project or midlife crisis.

The #MeToo campaign had helped women, but now they were allowing themselves to be dominated in this 'different style,' according to the actress, 44. She warned that this kind of lifestyle industry had 'politicized food and exercise,' which was risky. Ms Pike stars in a new BBC podcast drama titled People Who Knew Me, which also includes satirical references to Gwyneth Paltrow's lifestyle brand Goop in the script.

Penguin has sent a letter warning that PG Wodehouse's books are 'outdated' socially. Both Leave It to PSmith and Something Fresh have been reissued by their publishers. 'Please be aware that this book was published in the 1920s and may have words, themes, or portraitizations that you may find outdated.' In April, publishers rewrote Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster books to delete 'unacceptable' prose, triggering the change. Publishers'sought to edit, minimally, words that we find offensive to present-day readers,' according to a note in the reissue of Thank You, Jeeves.

Two new documentaries on Gold will feature the missing pilot, as well as commentary from its cast members and leeps from the UK's most popular sitcom's four series. The tale begins in the mid-1970s at Oxford University, where aspiring writer Richard Curtis made friends with shy comedy genius Rowan Atkinson. Following the success of sketch show Not The Nine O'Clock News, which was founded in 1979 and co-written by Richard, the pair went on holiday to France and wrote Blackadder. Rowan Atkinson, Tony Robinson, Hugh Laurie in character.

Sir Tony Robinson has shared about the lucky twist of fate that saw him appear as Baldrick in Blackadder after he barely missed out on the role. Baldrick, Edmund Blackadder's dogsbody in the British historical sitcom, 76, rose to fame in 1983 and stayed in the role until 1989. But it was actor Philip Fox who played Baldrick in the original pilot of the program, It was called The Black Adder and was shot on June 20, 1982.

In a UKTV poll, it has been named the "funniest British sitcom of all time." On UKTV channel Gold, the original and unseen pilot will air ahead of the show's 40th anniversary.

Eight of the stamps depict scenes from all four series of Classic Blackadder, from medieval England to Queen Elizabeth I, while four others depict Edmund Blackadder, played by Rowan Atkinson in his various avatars from each of the series. The stamps depict some of the show's most beloved characters, including Sir Tony Robinson, Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, Tim McInnerny, Miranda Richardson, Brian Blessed, and Patsy Byrne. For £19.60, a presentation pack containing all 12 stamps will be available.

When the British classic Great Expectations came to an end with a different ending, viewers were left raging. However, this is far from the first time that the BBC has changed an adaptation. The Night Manager (left), Killing Eve (centre), Malory Towers (right inset), and His Dark Materials were among the Oher sequences that were redesigned when they first appeared on television.

Jeeves and Wooster (left)'s light-hearted escapades have been the new casualties of literature's relentless march. The books by PG Wodehouse (lower inset) on the pair's aristocratic misadventures (right) have been identified as having 'unacceptable' prose, according to the publishers.

This week, UK writer Kathryn Flett, left, watches Why Didn't They Ask Evans? Hugh Laurie's 'bouncily' wrote a 'perfectly soothing period piece' that was available on ITV1 and ITVX. She praises the all-star cast, right, as well as the 'wit, vim, and vigour' that they all bring to the tale.

EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Fact always being stranger than fiction, don't be surprised if King Charles' much-loved horse, Slipofthepen, races to victory in the Epsom Derby, the only serious race in which Queen Elizabeth never had a winner. But things could get stranger still, thanks to Sir Rupert Mackeson, the 81-year-old Scottish sporting baronet. Mackeson has been given his marching orders by his owners, the Jockey Club, after two and a half decades on the course, selling books and prints, many of whom were signed by his late friend, Lester Piggott, a Derby champion for a record nine times. 'I'm sure you can't go anymore,' Mackeson tells me, close to the paddock and backing onto the Queen's Stand.

It's a new form of transportation. Hugh Laurie, on the other hand, is clearly a fan, as he whistled around his north London neighbourhood on a scooter. The actor, who has adapted Agatha Christie's 1934 novel Why Didn't They Ask Evans? The two-wheeled Micro Scooter was seen wearing a cap and clutching a bright orange towel on ITV.

The three-part adaptation of the 1934 novel Why Didn't They Ask Evans? Hugh Laurie (right) is in charge of this Agatha Christie whodunnit story, which is a perplexing Agatha Christie whodunnit tale. It attracted a whole host of names, but who exactly is starring in the hotly-anticipated crime drama? Lead Lucy Boynton (left and inset) and Will Poulter (inset) are two of the cast's names.