THE JONATHAN ROSS SHOW: FULL RUNDOWN FOR THIS WEEK'S EPISODE, GUESTS AND PERFORMER REVEALED

On this week’s episode of The Jonathan Ross Show Jonathan is joined by actors Hugh Bonneville and Riz Ahmed, England rugby union player Ellie Kildunne MBE and comedian Harriet Kemsley. Singer-songwriter Jason Derulo performs. 

Actor Hugh Bonneville discusses the end of Downton Abbey, in this form at least saying of whether it would return: “Certainly not with our cast. But the castle still stands, so who knows? Maybe there’ll be one set in 2060?”

He adds: “None of us thought it would last beyond the seven episodes that were originally commissioned. Period dramas were dead, we were told. You never know how it’s going to turn out. We ended up doing whatever it was, 52 episodes and three films over 15 years.” 

Of the final film he says: “It was a nice farewell.” 

Asked if he misses the character of Lord Grantham Hugh replies: “No I don’t. I have huge love for the show, I have huge love for the people and for its legacy, but I’m very happy not having to get up that early in the morning and go to windy Highclere Castle.” 

Hugh says people do expect him to look like his character, explaining: “I remember going on The View in America with the late Barbara Walters, a legend. She was a big interviewer. She genuinely got the hump that I was wearing jeans, because ‘Lord Grantham shouldn’t wear jeans’. Some people can’t divide the fact from the fiction.”

Paddington is also a role he can’t leave behind, with fellow guest and comedian Harriet Kemsley saying: “I’m a bit starstruck, it’s Paddington’s dad! It’s crazy!” 

Of playing the role of Mr Brown, Hugh says: “It’s been really wonderful. I recently wrote a children’s book and I’ve been touring schools. The first question is always, ‘Where’s Paddington?’ [I say] ‘He’s at home at 32 Windsor Gardens, it’s marmalade day today otherwise he’d be here.’”

Asked about not returning for the next Paddington film, Hugh says: “I think I should put this in context, I’m just too blooming old. I can’t do the splits anymore like I did in the second film. Never say never. If Mr Brown comes back in a bath chair, I could be available.”

Discussing people’s confusion about whether it’s a real bear, Hugh says: “Hugh Grant tells a story, I think it was his father or relative, who after the first couple of minutes of Paddington 2 leaned over and said, ‘Is that a real bear?’” 

Although Hugh himself admits: “When I saw the first images of the bear being created in the editing room I was completely blown away. It was when Paddington sticks his head down the loo, I thought, ‘Wow, this is different!’”

Actor Riz Ahmed discusses the new slang use of his name, meaning swagger, saying: “This was a very surreal development for me, as you can imagine. I was in LA when it happened. I’m not a very online person, so I had no idea this was taking place. So I go to the coffee shop, they ask you for your name, I go ‘Riz’... They’d either frown or [smirk]. I was thinking, ‘What’s happening, why does everyone in LA hate me?’”

Discussing his Oscar win and where he keeps the statue, he says: “My mum keeps it. Every time I go there, I’m like, ‘Where is it?’ She doesn’t put it out on display. She’s like, ‘I’ve got it, don’t worry about it.’ I need proof of life. The real thing she’s worried about is the evil eye. There’s this thing in our culture, a lot of cultures actually, where you try and hide your success and play a little low key, because if people go, ‘Oh wow, that’s amazing’ then disaster will strike.” 

Harriet jokes: “Is there a chance she’s sold it?”

Riz replies: “I always wondered where that necklace came from…”  

Riz also describes working with Tom Cruise on new project Digger: “He’s a force of nature. He’s really incredible. Like an athlete. Single-minded belief, that drive, that athleticism that’s inspiring to be around. I can’t [tell you anything about Digger]. Have you seen how fast he runs? I don’t want him chasing me!” 

On receiving a gift from Cruise, he adds: “I don’t want to put evil on the fact that I get the Christmas cake, but I get the Christmas cake. I don’t want to break your heart, but it’s a banging cake. It’s a sponge cake, it’s coconut… it’s really something special.”

Discussing his new take on Hamlet for the big screen Riz says: “It’s been done many times before, so many amazing productions of it, I don’t think it’s ever been done quite like this. The reason these classics stay around is they still have something to say. Timeless stories; love, honour, loss, duty, family. We wanted to do it with a spin, so it’s a contemporary London setting in a British Asian business family.” 

He adds: “When I first wanted to take the project on, it’s taken 15 years, it just meant a lot to me, for many different reasons. I felt very out of place as a young kid, as a teenager, as many of us do, and Shakespeare felt like the epitome of everything I was on the outside of; it feels very posh, elitist, establishment… This teacher gave me Hamlet and I found how I was feeling in it. I became so passionate about it, even then. These stories are the heart of our culture, they belong to all of us. So I wanted to tell it in this way, that kind of just opens it up, allows more people to find themselves in it and feels very relevant and contemporary.” 

Starring alongside Kenneth Branagh in a 90s stage version of Hamlet, Hugh reveals a break for his character was so long he was able to leave to go to the dentist and come back: “I got this raging toothache. Because it was a full-length show, I had 2.5 hours off in the middle… so I went to the emergency unit and they said, ‘We just need to yank that out…’ [when I came back on] Ken was looking at me a bit strange… my temperature was 102, I was sent off. The understudy had to do the evening.” 

On being in the next series of The Gentleman, Hugh says of working with Guy Ritchie: “I can’t possibly talk about that. Guy is a proper multitasker as a director. He’s the only director I’ve worked with who is literally like, the cameras are running, and Theo [James] was in the shot and he was carving a bit of ham to give to his dog at the same time.” 

Hugh is now starring in the West End in Shadowlands, and speaking about performing to a live audience he says: “You can feel a silence, it’s why live performing is such a great premium and such a great pleasure. You can feel the emotion of the audience with every line, on camera you obviously can’t. As the great Judi Dench once said, the great thing about theatre is that tomorrow night you can get it right. Whereas on film and TV it’s locked forever. It’s wonderful doing it live and getting that sense of feedback from a live audience.” 

Describing her own experiences of live performing Harriet adds: “If it’s a good reaction it really helps, for sure. If it’s a bad reaction it feels really bad…” 

She adds: “It’s kind of a myth that there is that much heckling. Often the audience don’t like the heckling so it doesn’t happen that much. I once had a dog that wouldn’t shut up… I once had a show, I looked into the audience and a man was asleep in the front row. I was like, ‘This is really not ideal.’ Second taping I come out, the guy’s back and he’s asleep again… He was like, ‘This is so soothing.’” 

Hugh describes his own strange live experience: “In another play I did, there was a quite intense silent bit and I did hear someone snoring. And I did a play at the national theatre years ago with Juliet Stevenson and it was in the round, we were in this really tense stand-off scene and this bloke got up and literally walked between us…. When you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go. And then you’ve got to come back. He was in a rush!”

Rugby star Ellie Kildunne MBE discusses winning the Rugby World Cup: “I’m telling you now - we never played our best game of rugby in that World Cup and we still won it - we’re going to take over the world, if we haven’t already done it. We’re going to take it even further and personally I’m going to keep on pushing to be the best player.”

On losing the previous World Cup she says: “I’m a strong believer that everything happens for a reason and I think it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me was losing that World Cup [against New Zealand]. You learn from your failures massively. 

“After reflecting I was set on never feeling the way I felt in that World Cup and since then it’s been all sunshine and daisies so something worked!”

She adds: “It’s a brutal sport, I always question myself, ‘Why do I do it?’ The amount of times I get tackled and I cry on the floor. More than one time. It’s the shock. Why would anyone want to be ‘dump tackled’? Most people would say, ‘That’s me done!’

“It is a very aggressive sport but it is also controlled through… you don’t want to be carded. It puts your team in a place they don’t want to be.”

Ellie also talks about taking up a new hobby as a tattoo artist. 

She explains: “The first victim was my roommate. We didn’t quite get it right… Next person said, ‘Can I have my cap number?’ It’s like the Olympic rings. I am very good at numbers. To this day it’s the best one I’ve ever done. 

“Then I said to our new coach, as a joke, I’ve got a proposition, if we win the World Cup can I tattoo you? He said, ‘Yeah, yeah sure.’ I take that very seriously. I was never going to forget that. [After we won I] went to his wife and I said, ‘Is it ok if I do this?’ she said, ‘Yes.’ I tattooed on him ‘2025’, but the funny part about it, he said he liked mine [two lines that have no meaning really but] I said it means equality. So he said, ‘I love it’ and he wanted it with the number [so that’s what I did].” 

Jonathan then shakes her hand making a deal he’ll get a tattoo from Ellie another day. 

Harriet goes on to discuss being diagnosed with Dyspraxia, saying: “[I’m a] bit clumsy, medically clumsy. I found out because my sister, we were having lunch and she said, ‘I was watching Embarrassing Bodies last night and I think you might have the same thing as the woman on it.’ I was like, that’s not a sentence you ever want to hear. She did this test on me that they did on Embarrassing Bodies and I did it at the table and I knocked over two glasses...

"Then I had to get tested. This professor came to my house to test me. I was so nervous about this test and what it meant, I opened the door to him and burst into tears, crying in his face… I got my foot stuck in a bowl. So I was crying with my foot stuck in this bowl and I’m saying, ‘I’m so sorry just give me one moment, while I just get this bowl off of my foot’ and he said, ‘Thank you so much Harriet, you’ve saved us five hours, you’ve got it!’”

Discussing her new tour, titled Floozy, Harriet says: “My mum did look up what it meant. The name is aspirational. Everyone’s like you don’t want to come across as a floozy and I’m like trying to be a floozy. It’s not easy out there. I’m trying to have a good time. 

“I’m at the stage of my life, I just got divorced, it’s called a no fault divorce, you can just do it… So now I should be having a fun time, but I just get attached… that’s the problem.”

Discussing being a mum, Harriet adds: “I took her on tour at the beginning. Then I had to start leaving her with a babysitter. That’s the scariest thing that’s ever happened. First time I left her I was crying. I thought, I’ll message and check in and that’ll make me feel better. The babysitter was really sweet but her English wasn’t great. I said, ‘Is she sleeping?’ I think she meant to say yes, but her English wasn’t great and so what she replied with was, ‘Her eyes shut, she don’t move.’ She followed up with the most terrifying message I’ve ever received, ‘She angel now.’ With the little angel emoji. The worst thing you can send. So scary. She meant she was behaving angelically.”

At the end of the show Jason Derulo performs live. 

The Jonathan Ross Show airs Saturday nights on ITV1 and ITVX.