The Outlaws on BBC proved to be very popular when it landed on screens last month – and now, writer and star of the show Stephen Merchant has opened up about series two of the comedy-drama.
Chatting to HELLO!'s film expert James King for our Christmas Digital Issue, which has been guest edited by Martine McCutcheon, the comedy legend revealed that series two is on the way, but the filming ended up being a "nightmare" for the cast and crew.
WATCH: Have you watched The Outlaws on BBC?
"We filmed two series back-to-back because we got shut down like so many other productions because of the COVID pandemic," he began.
"And then I basically said to the BBC, 'Look, I'm twiddling my thumbs, can I write another series?' We came out and shot two series back-to-back, which, on the page on paper seems lovely and a great vote of confidence, but proved to be an absolute nightmare, as you can imagine, because that was 12 hours of TV. It was relentless and exhausting for everybody."
However, filming in such close succession wasn't all bad. The Extras star continued: "What was good about that is it allowed us to address anything we needed to fix in the scripts for series one that we could resolve in series two, we were able to go back and make changes.
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© Photo: BBCThe Outlaws will return for series two
"So I like to think that the two series really connect together. The second picks up exactly where the first one ended." We can't wait!
Stephen, who is also known for his writing credits in hugely successful sitcom The Office, also spoke to James King about his latest project – A Boy Called Christmas. The actor opened up about his experience working on the movie, which also stars Dame Maggie Smith and Kristen Wiig.
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"It's the origin story of Santa, which I'm sure has been done before, but I couldn't think of an obvious example of it. People will say to me, 'Any funny stories from the set?' Never went to set. 'What were the other actors like?' Never met them!
"I'm just in a recording booth, I'm just recording the voice. And that goes on for months and months and months because they can kind of keep calling you back."
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