Comedian John Oliver 'couldn't consider' Bedford theme park plan

Louise Parry

BBC Information, Bedfordshire

Late Night With Seth Myers/YouTube John Oliver sits on a talk show chair speaking to camera - he is animated and reaches his hand out, gesticulating. He wears black glasses and has short grey hair and dark eyebrows. — John Oliver joked in regards to the plans on US discuss present Late Night time with Seth Meyers

Discuss present host and comic John Oliver stated he couldn’t consider the information that Common Studios was planning to construct a theme park close to his dwelling city.

The presenter, who grew up in Bedford, joked on US discuss present Late Night time with Seth Meyers about plans to open Europe’s first Common theme park in rural Bedfordshire, an hour north of London.

“Apparently they’re doing it in an previous deserted brickworks, which already looks as if a daring selection,” he stated.

“Now they’ll construct a Common Studios there, which appears like not the worst determination that NBC Common has ever made, nevertheless it’s positively the funniest.”

Common Studios will construct a 476-acre (193-hectare) attraction close to Bedford, just like its theme park in Orlando

Roberto Machado Noa Orlando Universal Studios with four huge yellow and red rollercoasters in the distance and a lake in the foreground, with a bridge over it. Smaller rides and kiosks in the middle distance, and visitors walking over the bridge. — Common Studios will construct a 476-acre (193-hectare) attraction close to Bedford, just like its theme park in Orlando

He informed Myers: “I used to be all of their renderings and pondering, ‘That is spectacular’.

“However you may be promising Common Studios and as an alternative you may have a Paddington [Bear] chain-smoking exterior.”

Oliver, who went to Mark Rutherford Faculty in Bedford, holds British and US citizenship and has cast a glittering profession in American TV satire.

His first display look dates again to his childhood in Bedford, filmed proper by the Common Studios website.

“I have been to these brickworks. As a child, I used to be in an adaptation of a Dickensian drama, and I performed a Victorian orphan,” he stated.

“And it was in these brickworks, as a result of they nonetheless have the sort of air of disappointment about them.

“At one level they have been, I consider, the biggest brickworks on this planet.”

A scene from Bleak Home, shot on the Kempston Hardwick brickworks earlier than they closed down

BBC/YouTube A slightly blurry image of four industrial chimneys with smoke pouring out, next to a large building. In the foreground is a film set of a Victorian village. — A scene from Bleak Home, shot on the Kempston Hardwick brickworks earlier than they closed down

Oliver had appeared within the 1985 BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens’ novel Bleak Home.

“There will be a Bleak Home journey”, joked Myers, earlier than asking Oliver: “Are you anxious in regards to the staffing for this theme park, based mostly on the native scene?”

Oliver joked: “Yeah, I am positively anxious. I’d not need the folks that I grew up with pretending to be Elsa [from Frozen]. However who would they’ve? Minions?

“Yeah, we may do Minions. There is a quiet violence about them, is not there? We will do this.”