Colman, who plays Sally Owen, Ian Fletcher’s personal assistant in Twenty Twelve, is also equally as brilliant as Alex Smallbone in Rev. Even though the 2012 London Olympics have long since past, Twenty Twelve is well worth another look. Along with Colman and Hynes, the series stars a number of familiar faces including Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey, Mr. Stink), Amelia Bullmore (Scott and Bailey) and Karl Theobald (Green Wing, Primeval).

For the upcomming 2012 Olympics, digital is one of the most crucial things for a modern brand manager to get right, so the pressure is on for Siobhan (Jessica Hynes) to explain her strategy. Twitter, Facebook, Mashable and even MySpace all have their part to play in creating the digital legacy for the games. Here, to refresh your own individual mind palace before you set up a marathon viewing session…
 

Fox orders full series of U.S. Gavin & Stacey

As we reported some time back, Fox had earlier piloted a U.S. version of the British mega-hit, Gavin & Stacey. Now, according to reports, they have now ordered a full series starring Jason Ritter (Parenthood) and Alexis Bledel (Gilmore Girls).
 

Ritter will play city boy, Gavin, with Bledel starring as his small-town girlfriend, Stacey. The comedy/drama, like its UK counterpart, will follow the couple whose burgeoning romance is constantly at the mercy of their friends and family. What does give reason for hope is that, unlike the ill-fated first attempt from ABC, which was not to involve its British creators, James Corden and Ruth Jones, but instead, the writing duties would be by U.S. sitcom writers of According to Jim, the Fox version will not only involve both Corden and Jones, but Steve Coogan, who executive-produced the pilot.

UK’s Everybody Loves Raymond set in Chester

Not to be outdone, BBC1 viewers will soon be able to see a pilot for a British version of the hit U.S. comedy, Everybody Loves Raymond starring Lee Mack (Not Going Out) and Catherine Tate (Catherine Tate Show, Doctor Who). Written by Mack, The Smiths will be set in Cheshire and stick fairly close to the original which follows a successful sportswriter who lives opposite his overbearing family.
 

While, I’m probably unfairly not crazy about this one either, there is reason for hope here also given the cast but also, as Radio Times points out, ‘much of the comedy for Raymond came from his inability to take anything seriously and penchant for making jokes in the most inappropriate of situations, much like Mack’s alter-ego in his hit sitcom Not Going Out.

That said, the strengths of both the UK Gavin & Stacey and the U.S. version of Everybody Loves Raymond go well beyond the stars for each series. The brilliant ensemble casts played a big role in their respective successes. It’s hard to imagine how you can duplicate the genius of Rob Brydon or Peter Boyle but, I wish them both well as they seem to be starting off the right way so far at least.

Series creator Graham Linehan, the brilliant mind behind Father Ted and Black Books) has long hinted at the possibility of a final episode but until his announcement at the recent re:publica digital conference in Germany, it has only been given two chances (slim and none) since the series ended in 2010. For U.S. fans of the series, look for the possibility of the series to air on public television stations in the not-too-distant future.

For those that may need a brief refresher course on the greatness of the IT Crowd or if you mildly curious as to what the Internet looks like….
 

With that in mind, Michelle Dockery, known for playing the do-whatever-you-have-to-do-to-save-Downton aristocrat, Lady Mary Crawley in Downton Abbey, heads to Family Guy and stretch out by lending her voice and appearing in a cutaway gag on the Griffins’ television set playing an aristocrat in – you guessed it – a British period drama. According to Entertainment Weekly, her brief cameo will air in an episode next season.
 

Between this, the return of series 4 of the real Downton Abbey (not just a reasonable facsimile thereof on the Griffin’s TV set) and the longer than long-awaited series 3 return of Sherlock, 2014 is already shaping up as a good telly year.

Hugh Laurie: Didn’t it Rain, the follow-up to his 2011 collection of blues standards, ‘Let Them Talk’, follows a similar format of blues and jazz arrangements with numerous high caliber guest musicians, including Taj Mahal, who have lent their talents to support Laurie’s blues piano.
 

After listening to both ‘Let Them Talk’ and ‘Didn’t it Rain’, which will be released on Monday, it’s crystal clear that Laurie isn’t anywhere near that long line of television or movie stars who, for whatever reason, believe they have an birthright entitlement to record a CD and tour regardless of talent. Laurie has been a student of music history for much of his life. At a recent Queen Mary party to celebrate the release of his upcoming CD, Laurie explained that in 1975 a personal hero, the late New Orleans singer and pianist Professor Longhair, played in the very room he was performing in at a party thrown by Paul McCartney and Wings. The resulting album, ‘Live on the Queen Mary’, had a profound impact on the 19-year-old Laurie. “…It changed everything for me“, Laurie said.

Laurie’s first exposure to the blues came when he was aged 11 or 12. According to Laurie, Willie Dixon’s I Can’t Quit You Baby ‘made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up’. The first album he bought was Muddy Waters’s Live At Mr Kelly’s. He was hooked. With ‘Let Them Talk’ and now Didn’t it Rain’, it’s clear that Laurie is dedicated to making music that is alive and that could stand on its own.
 

 
Didn’t It Rain will be released on Warner Music on Monday, 6 May. Hugh Laurie and the Copper Bottom Band will tour throughout the UK beginning 13 June. Let’s hope he finds his way to this side of the pond in the not-too-distant future.

While the BBC hasn’t ‘officially’ confirmed the commissioning of a second series, Coogan did confirm by saying: “We are going to Italy. I went there three weeks ago to meet Rob and Michael to go for dinner and talk about what we were going to do. We’re supposed to be retracing the footsteps of the Romantics, of Shelley and Byron and Keats, and I don’t know enough about it. I’m damned if Rob’s going to come across as an authority on it. It’ll be a great motivation for me to read up on it so that when we improvise, I can drop some information on him.”

In the original 2010 series The Trip, which was released as a feature film in the States, Coogan stars as, well, Steve Coogan. Alongside co-star Rob Brydon, Coogan does his best Larry David and/or Rick Spleen imitation in a multitude of never-ending phone conversations with his agent turning down roles in second-rate movies while giving serious consideration to an HBO drama series. In, perhaps, the most ironic line ever uttered in a movie that I can remember, Coogan emphatically tells his agent, “I don’t want to do British TV“.

Lest you think this is just an extended length Curb Your Enthusiasm or Seinfeld, the actual storyline of The Trip has Coogan and Brydon, playing themselves, sort of, traveling across the north of England on a food and wine, fine-dining, tour of country inns. It is brilliant, and well worth the time.

Throughout ‘the trip’, Coogan and Brydon provide some brilliant interchanges, one of them, in particular, discussing how to rally the troops for their impending battle….
 

 
Look out Italy. You’ve been warned…

Filmed at 54 Below, the legendary Studio 54′s secret VIP room in New York, actor and comedian Colin Andrew Mochrie (Whose Line Is It Anyway?) is brilliant as Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, who explains his decision to create a Downton musical in between cuts of songs that would fit perfectly into Edwardian England.
 

 
Clear a space on the shelf, this has ‘Tony’ written all over it. After all, Carson sings about tea, Mrs. Hughes tries to get him to embrace a newfangled way of making his favorite drink and Mary and Tom sing sad songs while they hold their babies. if that’s not award worthy, Mary Stout, who portrays Mrs. Patmore, reveals it’s been a lifelong dream of hers to play Mrs. Lovett from Sweeney Todd. FYI, Mrs. Hughes is Randy Graff, who won a Tony Award for her performance in City of Angels.

The comedy/drama thriller is about two lowly office workers who become caught up in a criminal conspiracy after one of them discovers a ringing phone at the scene of a major car crash. Producer, Jim Fields further explains that the show “…is a drama-action-thriller; it’s just that these two idiots are stuck in the middle of it.” …
 

 
In addition to Corden, Baynton and French, the all-star cast also includes Silent Witness star Emilia Fox, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels actor Nick Moran, Prometheus star Benedict Wong, The Thick of It actress Rebecca Front and Dougray Scott from Mission Impossible II, My Week with Marilyn and Desperate Housewives
 

Definitely one to keep an eye on…

“I’ve started writing again now,” Lane said. “My mind is working on an idea. I’ve been seriously thinking of writing more about something here in Liverpool. It’s where I was born and I understand it best of all. It will be about a street, that I can tell you, because everything that happens in life happens in a Liverpool street.”

We first met Lane in September of 2009 when we interviewed her as part of PBS’ Behind the Britcom: From Script to Screen program. She spoke of how she unknowingly crashed the predominantly male-dominated world of British comedy, shared with us her writing style and also her extreme fondness for actor, Geoffrey Palmer, whom she had not seen in over 10 years until we engineered their being together for the interview. Palmer starred as Ben Parkinson in Lane’s late 70′s, early 80′s series, Butterflies.
 

 
Lane spoke at great length about being one of the early female pioneer writers of British situation comedy and how everything that she’s ever written stems from drama and sadness. She always began with a sad story, built a drama around the characters and then made it funny. Because of that there was some thought that it was tough for critics to wrap their heads around her life’s work. Even the BBC felt that there was something about that first Butterflies script that was just ‘not quite right’.

Let’s hope both critics and the BBC will wrap their heads around her next project.

The Guilty

Tamsin Greig (Black Books, Friday Night Dinner, Green Wing, Episodes), Katherine Kelly and Darren Boyd (Whites, Spy, Dirk Gently) are set to star in this 3-part drama produced by Hartswood Films and written by Debbie O’Malley (Law & Order: UK, Silk). Currently in production, the drama is set across two timelines, 2008 and present day, and tells the story of DC Maggie Brand (Greig) who investigates the disappearance of a young child. Given that this will have both ITV and Hartswood Films fingerprints all over this, for me, makes me think it will be one to watch. All you have to do is think Sherlock, Scott & Bailey and DCI Banks and you know where I’m coming from…

The Job Lot
 

 
Led by Sarah Hadland (Miranda) and Russell Tovey (Being Human, Him & Her), The Job Lot is set in a busy West Midlands job centre, and focuses on the relationships between the people that work there, the people that don’t work there and anywhere else for that matter. On the ‘have a job’ side, you have a very neurotic Trish (Hadland), who runs the Brownall job centre, reluctant and truculent Karl (Tovey), their overly sour co-worker Angela and plain speaking Danielle, who has just returned to work after giving birth.

On the ‘finding a job’ side, you have Graham (Martin Maudsley) and Bryony (Sophie McShera, who plays Daisy in Downton Abbey). Thankfully, you have fraud officer George, a lone wolf who takes his undercover surveillance work very seriously and two security guards; diminutive Janette and her colleague, cheeky charmer Paul, protecting the staff of the Brownall job centre.

Breathless

This new medical drama follows the lives of a group of doctors and nurses working in a London hospital. According to the ITV Press Centre, Breathless opens in 1961, a time when Britain was on the brink of the ‘60s revolution – abortion is illegal and the contraceptive pill is only just available to married women. Set in and around a busy gynaecology unit, medicine becomes the perfect stage to play out the shifting and complex moral codes of early 1960s society.

Fairly or unfairly being touted as ITV’s answer to the BBC’s Call the Midwife, the series will sport an all-star cast headed by Jack Davenport (Pirates of the Caribbean, Coupling) with Pippa Haywood (Mr Selfridge, Scott & Bailey), Zoe Boyle (Downton Abbey, Sons of Anarchy), Oliver Chris (One Man Two Guvnors, Green Wing), Catherine Steadman (The Tudors, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen), Sarah Parish (Hatfields & McCoys, Monroe) and Iain Glen (Game of Thrones, Prisoners Wives).