From Sketches to Multiplexes
Big movies often benefit from Brit-com talent.
It hopefully isn't too huge a spoiler to reveal that Hugh Dennis - probably best known for Mock The Week, Fleabag and Outnumbered - pops up early in the new James Bond film, No Time To Die. No sign of his old partner Steve Punt though, sadly, although Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge was heavily involved with the film's script.
It's always heartening when people who found fame in our business cross over into huge blockbusters: it gives new hope to everyone slogging away at the comedy coalface. Waller-Bridge graced the Star Wars universe a few years back too, in the prequel movie Solo, voicing a robot who ends up with an intimate connection to Han Solo's famous ship, the Millennium Falcon.
Actually Han doesn't own the Falcon at that point, as he eventually wins it playing a sort of sci-fi game of poker. But then lots of casino action sounds pretty sci-fi these days, if you tried explaining it to someone who'd been frozen in carbonite for a few decades. Why venture to your local version of Las Vegas when you can get Sky Vegas free spins on your favourite device? We're in the future already, folks.
Back to Star Wars, and well-spoken Brits have proven popular in the droid department, following the original template begun by Anthony Daniels way back in 1977: after Waller-Bridge, Richard Ayoade voiced a robot in an episode of The Mandalorian, the hugely popular series on Disney Plus. Brit actors have been popular on the dark side too, from Peter Cushing's sinister Grand Moff Tarkin to various empire underlings, played by actors recognisable from Grange Hill, Ripping Yarns, etc. Get one of those gigs and you can guest at comic cons forever.
One comic actor who has made a mark in several different franchises is Peter Serafinowicz, who provided the voice for pretty much the only good thing in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace - the evil red-faced Darth Maul. Not the body, though: it was Scottish martial artist Ray Park who actually wielded Maul's double-ended lightsabre - and endured the lengthy make-up sessions.
But Serafinowicz then got to appear physically in Marvel's first foray into space, as Garthan Saal in Guardians Of The Galaxy, a slightly pompous member of galactic police force the Nova Corps. Imagine if his nagging housemate character from Shaun Of The Dead became a space copper, rather than a zombie: that's Garthan. And he played the title role in two seasons of Amazon's superhero comedy, The Tick.
As we've mentioned here before, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has welcomed a bunch of British thespians who previously starred in comedies with much smaller budgets; notably, Dr Strange's Benedict Wong (15 Storeys High) and Benedict Cumberbatch (Cabin Pressure). Now Marvel's Disney Plus series are continuing that trend.
Wong and Cumberbatch reprised their roles in What If, the animated series that explored alternate Marvel realities. Sophia di Martino (Friday Night Dinner, Mount Pleasant) made a big impact as the anti-hero Sylvie in this summer's Loki, while Di Martino's Flowers colleague Olivia Colman will appear in the still under-wraps Secret Invasion, next year.
At this rate we might have a bet on half the cast of Ghosts turning up in Ghostbusters: Afterlife next month. Stranger things have happened.