James Norton

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The deliciously dark comedy about a man with cerebral palsy is back - and now, celebs are lining up to star in it ... and to make you squirm like never before.

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The iconic event is set to kick off in a matter of days and with thousands of shows set to take place we pick out some of the best on offer.

Peake-Jones never watched OFAH until appearing on it

Actress Tessa Peake-Jones, 58, on how she got involved with Britain's biggest sitcom as Raquel, her dream of dancing on Strictly..., and a close encounter with a naked James Norton.

The last time PG Wodehouse was a hit on the small screen was a good couple of decades back when Fry and Laurie slipped into the apparel of Jeeves and Wooster. Bally good fun it was too. Since then, the frightful cads and dishy heiresses of Wodehouse's world have had to carry on flapping in print. Here, however, comes Blandings, adapted from Wodehouse's series of rural capers set in prelapsarian Shropshire.

Rather than lavish oodles of budget on a spiffing primetime rival to Downton, the BBC have sensibly positioned Blandings as a Sunday early evening entertainment for all the family. From the moment the Empress, Lord Emsworth's prizewinningly sizeable pig, unleashes her first flatulent fanfare, the scheduling looks (and sounds) vindicated. Cast as his Lordship is Timothy Spall, suggesting just a whiff of the maxim that all pigs look like their owners. As Connie, his termagant of a sister, Jennifer Saunders often threatens to harrumph off to her room if she doesn't get her way. Deprived of the jaunty, silken music of Wodehouse's prose, we are yet to find out why this dire warning is quite such a bad thing.

With Lost in Austen, Guy Andrews has already proved a dab hand at paying tribute to much loved literature while luring it towards the present day. Sometimes here he meddles a little too assertively. When Freddy Emsworth (Jack Farthing) was busy getting the Old Bill drunk in order to break ex-cowboy Jimmy (James Norton) out of jug, pleasing strains of rag and Charleston made way for anachronistic boogie-woogie. Meanwhile some jokes are going to sail over the heads of a younger audience. Freddy alluded - a touch too louchely for teatime - to the Pink Pussy Club. And nowadays not everyone is going to laugh at this one: "Harrow? Yes I guessed he'd known corruption in his youth." But it's fun and doesn't think the world of itself.