Jack Barnes © BBC 2011
Tonight BBC America will premiere the first three episodes of Twenty Twelve, a new comedy starring Hugh Bonneville and written and directed by John Morton (People Like Us). Though Hugh rose to prominence as Lord Grantham in Downton Abbey, his first nomination for a Best Actor TV BAFTA was for his performance as Ian Fletcher in Twenty Twelve. Ian is in charge of “Deliverance” for the London 2012 Olympics, which appears to be an umbrella term for getting everything working on time. Unlike Lord Grantham, Ian lacks adequate staff. Jessica Hynes (Spaced) plays a PR facilitator whose hyper-creativity is only surpassed by her cavalier disregard for the facts. Here they are discovering a glaring disconnect between art and function at the launch event for the 2012 countdown clock. Yet after this and many subsequent disasters, Ian still insists, “My default setting is pretty positive.” The cast also includes Olivia Coleman (Peep Show) as Ian’s hopelessly devoted personal assistant and Karl Theobald (Primeval [Vol 1]), who is quite convincing as the kind of team player who always seems to know exactly what he’s talking about, but hardly ever does. The mockumentrary’s narration by David Tennant (Doctor Who, Hamlet) is typically low-key, but don’t tune it out. He has some of the best double-speak lines. A complete series DVD is in the works for later this year.
BBC America has put together a great page on the show, which includes a link to watch Episode 1 now. In Canada Twenty Twelve is running on the Comedy Network on Sunday nights at 9pm ET.
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