Hugh’s that girl:
Downton Abbey actor Hugh Bonneville adopts a range of different guises, including dressing up as a woman, when he appears in the comedy Walliams And Friend. James Rampton reports.
Hugh Bonneville shows his feminine side.
E xpect to see Downton Abbey actor Hugh Bonneville as you have never seen him before.
Bonneville, who is best known for his role as Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham in Downton Abbey, is David Walliams’ Friend in the Christmas special of the sketch show Walliams And Friend.
Walliams, one of Britain’s most popular comedians, says that viewers might be surprised to see Bonneville in some of the guises he adopts on the show.
“For one sketch, we got Hugh to cross-dress – it didn’t take much to persuade him, I must say,” laughs Walliams. “He brought a selection of his own gowns stolen from Dame Maggie Smith. In the event, Hugh did a brilliant impression of Elizabeth McGovern, who plays his wife in Downton Abbey.”
Walliams has remained highly successful since breaking through with another sketch show, Little Britain, 14 years ago. The comedian has proved to have real “legs” in the business.
It is partly because he is a naturally funny man. But it is also down to the fact that he has never sat back on his laurels.
Not at all afraid of hard work, Walliams has made himself a moving target for potential critics by continually reinventing himself. Just in the past few years, he has undertaken an eye-watering number of different projects – including judging a talent show (he has a whale of a time taking the mickey out of his fellow judge Simon Cowell on Britain’s Got Talent), co-writing and starring in a sitcom (Big School), headlining in an Agatha Christie drama (Partners In Crime), and also becoming one of Britain’s best-selling children’s authors (his latest novel, Bad Dad, was published in November). But, as he takes a brief pause from his hectic schedule, Walliams says he feels he is really “coming home” by returning to sketch comedy.