One minute he’s an Edwardian earl in Downton; the next, in biblical times as Pontius Pilate in Ben Hur. Soon he’ll be bang up-to-date in Twenty Twelve. Where (and when) will Hugh Bonneville go next?

“I don’t think I’d like to live in the past. I think that might be dull.”

It’s an unexpected statement from a man who’s found huge success in a his-torical TV drama.

“Much as I love Downton Abbey—don’t get me wrong—I think it would be rather dull to look backwards all the time,” Hugh Bonneville, who plays the Earl of Grantham in the mega-hit ITV drama, continues. “I’m very happy living in the modern world.”

In fact, the 48-year-old actor, who will be back on our TV screens shortly in a second series of Olympic sitcom Twenty Twelve, cares passionately about today’s Britain.
“We’ve got the potential to change the future; we can’t change the past,” he says. Recent budget cuts mean the village in West Sussex where he lives with his wife Lulu, a full-time mum, and nine-year-old son Felix, only has one bus a day to the nearest town. But he’s been impressed that the residents have responded by working together to open a local shop.

“I think the opportunities we have as a society now—even though we are in really choppy waters—are opportunities to make a better Britain. Whether we will or not I don’t know. History shows that we rather f*** it up whenever we try...”

Ironically, Twenty Twelve, the beautifully observed imagining of what it’s like behind the scenes at the Olympic Delivery Authority, doesn’t show the 21st century in the best of lights. It unpicks brilliantly the bureaucratic spaghetti and incompetence that may or may not be behind the efforts to create the multi-billion-pound sporting showcase. The Games countdown clock goes backwards. A coach party of dignitaries gets lost on the A12. High-ranking officials communicate in “um”s and “ah”s—which appear to be improvised by the cast, but are, according to Hugh, “absolutely choreographed down to every dot”.

Hugh plays Ian Fletcher, the long-suffering head of what the programme rechristens the “Olympic Delivery Committee”. He has to try to deal with almost daily disasters aided, but mainly abetted, by jargon-fuelled pen-pushers and bluster-filled publicists.
Following his breakthrough screen performance as tactless stockbroker Bernie in Notting Hill in 1999, Hugh has a reputation for playing slightly bumbling, upper-class British types. But he doesn’t think that applies to Fletcher.

“I would argue that he’s anything but bumbling, and I don’t think class comes into it. That’s a red herring, frankly. He’s putting a brave face on a potentially catastrophic situation. It’s those around him that bumble, while he has to bring together hundreds of millions of pounds’ worth of budget on time. It’s his brief to make sure that Sebastian Coe doesn’t get blamed for any of it!”

Whether Fletcher should be counted as an example or not, Twenty Twelve is a sharp portrayal of the “Peter Principle”—the concept of people being promoted to a level beyond their capabilities, something that’s been on the news agenda a lot, with banks and businesses failing. “It would be very wrong for any of us to say that people get promoted beyond their capabilities,” chuckles Hugh. “There can’t be anyone in government or a captain of industry who hasn’t got the faintest idea of what they should be doing—that would be scurrilous to suggest…

“Some people maybe shouldn’t be doing what they’re doing, particularly when there are millions of pounds involved. It doesn’t bode well for the  smooth running of the Games. People being promoted beyond their abilities? Yes, we are particularly skilled at that in this country!”
Warming to the theme, he admits that there are other things about today’s world that frustrate him. Particularly his broadband coverage. “I was in Liberia [he’s a patron of medical-aid charity Merlin] and I had fantastic broadband. You scratch the skirting board here and there are still mice behind it.”
Literally or symbolically? “I remember being in a really smart Californian hotel once, when I was filming a TV pilot.
I had a lovely room, but the light kept blowing, so I followed the lead to a brightly painted skirting board. I lifted it up and there was a dead mouse behind it. I guess it was a metaphor for the contemporary world. There’s a veneer of everything being high-tech, but we are pretty rough...”

The press is another of Hugh’s bugbears. Not coverage about him, but of current affairs: “I think the media can choose to put a negative spin on every story or it can accentuate the positive. I’m sure a lot of what we are going
through now is self-fulfilling. That’s what p****s me off, our knee-jerk tendency to accentuate the negative. Things may be bad, but to have Jeremy Paxman finish Newsnight by saying things like, ‘We’re back to depress you with some more news tomorrow night’, I find really tiring.”

Hugh has become a regular face on our screens with roles in everything from TV dramas such as Midsomer Murders and Lost in Austen, to Iris Murdoch biopic Iris. But, for the first decade after leaving Cambridge with a theology degree, he worked predominantly in the theatre—albeit to great acclaim—and was able to walk the streets without too much difficulty. Indeed, real fame only came with Downton, two years ago. Was finally achieving that status a relief or would he have liked to have made it big in his youth?

“I’m one of the luckiest actors I know,” he replies, simply. “I never thought for a second that I’d be in TV shows or in films, so when Notting Hill came along, that was an eye-opener. That put me in front of a bigger audience and opened doors. Now, with Downton, it’s a whole different thing. People’s expectations and affection for the show have been remarkable. I feel very lucky about my success—and excited that it allows me to do things like
Twenty Twelve.”

He’s also popped up in two series of BBC Two’s Rev, playing hedonistic vicar Roland Wise. But his theology degree didn’t particularly help his preparation.
“I wasn’t doing the course as a vocation. I just had a teacher at school who made theology seem like a really interesting subject. For me, it was like Classics, but, instead of Greece and Ancient Rome, I was studying Israel and the Bible. I’m not a man of practising faith, but I still find the Bible, as a piece of literature, fascinating.”

Last year, he sported an impressive beard as pirate Captain John Avery in Doctor Who and swashed his buckle so convincingly it seems he would make a pretty good Time Lord himself when Matt Smith decides to hang up his sonic screwdriver. Would that appeal?

“I don’t think I’ve got the energy of someone like Matt, but I absolutely loved doing the show. The moment I arrived on the set, the director said, ‘I know exactly what you want to do.’ I nodded my head and they took me along this long corridor—and there was the Tardis. Seeing it was a childhood dream come true.”
There does seem to be a tyranny of youth in time-travelling these days.
Past Doctor Whos resembled eccentric uncles; today, they could be in boy bands. “I think that’s a little unkind,” says Hugh, then concedes: “I grew up with William Hartnell, Jon Pertwee and Patrick Troughton… they’ve got gradually younger. TV can’t have anybody over 35 any more!”

Age notwithstanding, Hugh’s latest role could be his biggest yet, playing the eponymous lead in yet-to-be filmed movie The Return of Captain Nemo. “I’ve done a few projects and a pilot in LA. I’m very happy to go there for work but I’ve got no long-term ambitions. But then I suppose that’s what Hugh Laurie said and look where he is now. So never say never.”
He recently played Pontius Pilate in ABC drama Ben Hur—broadcast on Channel Five over Christmas—a role that shows he’s not afraid to get as far away from the posh British roles as possible.
“I’m very happy to hang up my wing collar and put on my toga,” he concludes. “Let’s put it that way.”

» The new series of Twenty Twelve starts later this spring on BBC Two.

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