When Hugh Bonneville was first asked to reprise the role of Ian Fletcher – protagonist of John Morton’s Bafta-winning workplace satires Twenty Twelve and W1A – his feelings were mixed. “I was on the one hand absolutely delighted,” says the actor, now most famous for playing dignified patriarchs in Downton Abbey and Paddington. “On the other hand, I was terrified because it’s the most painful and horrible experience I’ve ever had on television.”
In Twenty Twelve, Fletcher flexed his managerial muscles as “Head of Deliverance of the Olympic Deliverance Commission,” guiding his team through the chaotic run-up to the 2012 London Games. In W1A, he landed a job as “Head of Values” at the BBC, where he waded through a series of absurd disasters. Nine years on, a weary Fletcher is back in back-to-back meetings as the “Director of Integrity” of a nameless international football organisation hosting a nameless international football tournament (its blindingly obvious real-world basis is never identified due to “an overabundance of caution on the production’s part,” says Morton).
