IDRIS ELBOW Luther star’s Netflix comedy is dropped
Killer son’s lying mum Idris had hoped for a second season but couldn’t get it to work
A MOTHER who tried to protect her teenage son after he murdered her boyfriend has been jailed.
Nancy Smith, 48, admitted perverting justice over the horrific killing of Vincent Wilson, 52.
He walked out of their home with a knife in his head and as he lay dying in hospital she told him not say who had put it there.
She made up a story to deflect police attention away from her son Bernard Ward, then 17, including a bogus description of the ‘killer’. And she tried to take his phone, which had “violent” texts, Manchester crown court heard.
Smith, of Clayton, Gtr Manchester, got 18 months.
Ward, 18, was found guilty of murder last month and sentenced to life.
IDRIS Elba’s Netflix sitcom Turn Up Charlie has been turned OFF.
The Luther favourite’s foray into funny is over – with no plans for a second series, sources say.
Created by Idris himself, it saw the 47-year-old play a has-been DJ trying to revive his career.
It was a dream role for Idris, whose big love is music and being behind the decks.
An insider said: “Idris had hoped to get a second season rolling and was even working on new ideas but he couldn’t get it to work.
“Netflix and Idris just didn’t see eye to eye on it.”
Turn Up Charlie was billed as Idris’s big time comedy opportunity, moving him away from tough-guy crime roles such as a detective in Luther and drugs kingpin Stringer Bell in The Wire.
The first series went out last year to a lukewarm reception although Idris, who also moonlights as DJ Big Driis, got good pick-up for his rapping.
In it he stars as Charlie, a shambolic London bachelor and one-hit wonder from the 1990s desperate for a last shot at fame and fortune.
So he latches on to a successful old school pal, played by JJ Feild, and his superstar American DJ wife, played by Piper Perabo, and agrees to look after their problem child daughter.
Last May Elba told about his hopes of a series two: “It’s very exciting. I’m involved with the script creation, which is mainly seeding stories.
“There are characters that have their own narrative strands now.” Londoner Elba won’t need to worry about the cash, though. He is lined up for a Hobbs and Shaw sequel alongside Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock, and Jason Statham, as well as writing a movie version of BBC series Luther alongside creator Neil Cross.
He will also star as a convict in Netflix film The Harder They Fall, an all-black western produced by Jay-z.
Idris told how he was “humbled to be alive” after he and wife Sabrina, 30, became ill with coronavirus last month.
The two had mild symptoms and have since recovered. But he called the experience “scary and unsettling and nervous”. The couple are raising money for farmers hit by the health crisis.