PARTY ANIMAL

Hugh Laurie plays an ambitious MP with skeletons in his closet in political thriller Roadkill

- SEAN MARLAND

NEW DRAMA

Roadkill Sunday, BBC1 HD, 9 pm

After spending almost a decade in America playing medical genius Dr Gregory House, Hugh Laurie won rave reviews and a Golden Globe when he returned to British TV to play a villainous arms dealer in The Night Manager back in 2016.

Now, he takes on another hard-hitting role in Roadkill, a four-part political thriller from acclaimed playwright David Hare, set in Westminster’s corridors of power.

Laurie plays Peter Laurence, a charismatic Conservative MP and cabinet minister whose public and private lives seem to be falling apart, but who remains determined to make it all the way to Downing Street.

This week’s opening episode begins with Peter winning a libel case against a national newspaper. However, another scandal threatens to break when an inmate at a women’s prison contacts the MP saying that he has a daughter he doesn’t know about.

The all-star cast includes Helen McCrory as the Prime Minister, Saskia Reeves as Peter’s wife, and Borgen’s Sidse Babett Knudsen as his mistress.

We caught up with Laurie, 61, and his co-star Iain De Caestecker, 32, who plays Peter’s aide Duncan Knock, to discuss the show…

What can you tell us about Peter Laurence?