The real Atkinson has always seemed to be hiding behind that gurning mask. “When I caught Gerald in ’68 he was completely wild,” says his captor. In the sketch show created by John Lloyd, he played seething vicars, angry judges, raging superintendents and a furious gorilla. The last time there was anything approaching venom in his comedy was probably in Not the Nine O’Clock News in the early 1980s. No comedian has been less in danger of causing offence. It’s good, if profoundly odd, to find Atkinson on the barricades. In another unforeseen switcheroo, Atkinson has lately taken up cudgels against cancel culture, arguing in a rare interview to promote Man vs Bee that it is “comedy’s job to offend”, that “every joke has a victim. He genuinely thinks it’s an amazing place and he wants to do a good job of protecting it. What we were trying to get right was that, when he arrives at this rich couple’s house, there was no hint of envy. This was all part of the plan, according to Man vs Bee scriptwriter Will Davies. When was the last time that happened? Zazu in The Lion King? The tongue-tied vicar in Four Weddings and a Funeral? At the age of 67, Atkinson is playing someone you could tolerate meeting in real life. That famous face, so fitted to portray low cunning and absurd smugness, here softens into sincerity, even decency. But the bigger difference is that, unlike Mr Bean or Edmund Blackadder, or Johnny English or that copper he played in The Thin Blue Line, Trevor is quite likeable. The show goes out on Netflix in bite-size segments of 10 minutes, which marks a change of rhythm for Atkinson. It goes without saying that everything that can go wrong will go wrong, thanks to the titular insect which buzzes onto the premises at the same time as Trevor. Placed in his care are such valuables as an original E-Type Jag, a mobile by Kandinsky and a priceless illuminated manuscript. In the comedy series, Trevor has been hired to house-sit a tech-enabled super-home while its disgustingly wealthy owners go on holiday. Moving his face is what he does, and he’s doing it all over again in Man vs Bee. “Are you doing that thing again,” she asks, “when you don’t move your face and pretend the line’s frozen?” If there’s one thing you can say about Rowan Atkinson, it’s that he moves his face. There’s a moment in Netflix’s Man vs Bee when Rowan Atkinson – playing an accident-prone beta-male called Trevor Bingley – is on a video call with his ex-wife.
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