A new 4-part series of the BBC radio drama Number 10 will broadcast this week Monday-Thursday from 2.15-3.00pm on BBC Radio 4. Damian Lewis again reprises his role as PM Simon Laity. The episodes will be made available to listen to at the BBC website for 7 days after broadcast. Update: You can now download the first episode here from the Media archive.

Here’s a short review of the series from the Radio Times:

The first in the fifth series of Jonathan Myerson’s exceptional drama finds the Conservative Prime Minister Simon Laity (Damian Lewis) facing a number of challenges.

The Scottish parliament has legalised assisted suicide and a couple en route to the Dignitas clinic in Glasgow have been arrested in Northumberland; the Crown Prince of West Tuvalonga is posing a diplomatic problem after being apparently snubbed by Simon’s partner Alan at a state dinner; and the chief strategist is promoting an MP’s idea for an international six-day week.

Myerson keeps all the plates of the various plot lines spinning successfully, striking a fine balance between the absurd, the tragicomic and the serious, and interjecting a few telling gags from time to time. A blunder caught on a still open mic remind you of anyone?

Episode Guides:

BBC
Radio Times

The audio of Monday’s BAFTA Q&A with Damian Lewis and David Harewood is now available on Youtube. You can download it here from our Media archive.

The HuffPost has an article on the Q&A:

“You have to have a black man and a red head”, says Damian Lewis, explaining the American success of his espionage thriller Homeland.

Lewis and his fellow Brit co-star David Harewood have received a fantastic reception in the States for their roles as Sergeant Nicholas Brody, a marine and former prisoner of war, and Director of the CIA Counterterrorism Center David Estes, respectively.

The Golden Globe Award-winning drama, which also stars Claire Danes as determined CIA agent Carrie Mathison, has taken the US by storm. It’s reportedly Barack Obama’s favourite television programme and The New York Post have called it “the best thriller on American TV”, while the Los Angeles Times notes “it’s the first telling of a post-9/11 story that is all the things it should be: politically resonant, emotionally wrenching and plain old thrilling to watch.”

Now Lewis and Harewood are getting the chance to show off their lauded work back home, as Channel 4 brings the drama, loosely based on Gideon Raff’s Israeli television series Prisoners of War, to UK screens in February.

The compelling series centres on an American soldier (Brody) who was taken prisoner during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Left for dead, he miraculously returns to the US after years in captivity and the nation welcomes home their hero. However, tightly-wound CIA officer Carrie, who is battling her own psychological demons, is solely convinced that all is not as innocent as it seems.

Carrie puts her career on the line as she pursues her theory that the intelligence behind his rescue was a setup – and that he may be connected to an Al-Qaeda plot to be carried out on American soil.

At a sneak preview of Homeland at BAFTA’s headquarters, with Lewis and Harewood on hand to discuss their roles, it is clear that Homeland is going to become addictive. It’s not just a brilliantly-plotted espionage thriller with compelling and fascinating characters, it’s also a brave exploration of the difficulties of fighting terrorism a decade after September 11.

But how did they feel when they received the script for the first time – were they sure they were on to a winner?

“It was very exciting. The show sets itself up as a thriller and of course there’s a page turner left at the end as he’s standing staring at the White House. But what struck me was what they took on thematically, in just an hour’s worth of TV. The depth both in incident and character is something we don’t see over here,” explains Lewis.

Read the rest at the The Huffington Post UK.

People.com has a clip of Damian demonstrating his ‘hidden talent’ (TV Guide has a similar clip). He shows up 43 seconds into the video. You can download the clip from our archive here.

Click below for a video clip of Damian at BAFTA LA’s 18th Annual Awards Season Tea Party on Jan 14th. You can download the HD version of the clip from our Media archive here.

Damian Lewis was on Weekend Wogan on Sunday. You can listen to it here at the BBC radio site (his part begins at the 1:24 mark) or you can download here from our Media archive.

He said in the interview that he’ll next be working in Italy on Carlo Carlei’s adaption of Romeo And Juliet. The film is being touted as “Romeo and Juliet” for the “Twilight” generation. More on the project:

IMDb – Romeo and Juliet
Variety – Paul Giamatti joins Carlei’s ‘Romeo’