BBC One renews The Outlaws for Season 2
David Farnor | On 02, Dec 2021
BBC One and Amazon Studios have renewed The Outlaws for a second season.
The comedy thriller series from Stephen Merchant, originally created by Merchant and Elgin James (co-creator of US series Mayans MC), follows seven strangers from different walks of life forced together to complete a Community Payback sentence in Bristol.
Season 1 has become the BBC’s biggest comedy launch this year and has been streamed 11m times on BBC iPlayer so far. Following on directly from the first season, Season 2 will see The Outlaws still serving time on their sentences – but now they must face the fallout from their actions. If they thought the criminal underworld or the local police were done with them, they are sorely mistaken. The Outlaws must depend on one another while working with unlikely allies to atone for their sins – but can they save themselves without sacrificing their souls?
Season 2 will see the return of Christopher Walken, alongside writer and star Stephen Merchant (The Office, Jojo Rabbit), with Rhianne Barreto (Honour, Hanna), Gamba Cole (Soon Gone: A Windrush Chronicle, Hanna), Darren Boyd (Killing Eve), Clare Perkins (EastEnders), Eleanor Tomlinson (Poldark), Jessica Gunning (Back), Charles Babalola (Bancroft), Nina Wadia (Goodness Gracious Me, Bend It like Beckham), Tom Hanson (Brassic), and Aiyana Goodfellow (Small Axe) as Esme. Guest stars will include Julia Davis (Sally4Ever), Dolly Wells (Dracula), Ian McElhinney (Game Of Thrones, Derry Girls), and Claes Bang (Dracula).
Merchant says: “I am overwhelmed by the wonderful response to The Outlaws. Audiences have fallen in love with the characters as much as I have and my Twitter feed is inundated with people asking for updates on series two, so I’m delighted to confirm the entire gang will return for more adventures. If we made The Outlaws sweat in Series One, we’re really turning the heat up second time round.”
Jon Petrie, Director of BBC Comedy, says: “The Outlaws has entertained BBC viewers across the nation this autumn and we are thrilled to say the series is the BBC’s biggest comedy launch this year. We can’t wait for fans to see what Stephen has in store for this second series as our Outlaws come face to face with the consequences of their actions.”
The series is a co-production between BBC One and Amazon Studios. The Amazon deal was brokered by BBC Studios, who are also handling global distribution.
The six-part second season will premiere on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in the UK and on Amazon Prime Video in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Nordics.
Trailer: BBC One‘s The Outlaws begins this October
16th October 2021
Stephen Merchant’s The Outlaws begins on BBC One this month, and a new trailer gives us a first proper glimpse of the series.
A BBC and Amazon Studios co-production, it follows seven strangers from different walks of life forced together to complete a Community Payback sentence in Bristol. At first, they seem like archetypes we can easily pigeonhole, but gradually we see behind their façades, understand their hidden depths and what made them the people they are today. We are reminded that no one is all good or all bad. Everyone has a story.
As their unlikely new friendships intersect with their complicated private lives, The Offenders must unite to protect one of their own from Bristol’s most dangerous criminal gang. The show is part crime thriller, character study, and a state-of-the-nation commentary – with humour and heart.
The star-studded cast includes Christopher Walken, Merchant (The Office, Jojo Rabbit), Rhianne Barreto (Honour, Hanna), Gamba Cole (Soon Gone: A Windrush Chronicle, Hanna), Darren Boyd (Killing Eve, Lucky Man), Clare Perkins (EastEnders) and Eleanor Tomlinson (Poldark, The War of the Worlds). Also in the cast are Richard E Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me?), who plays The Earl, a member of the landed gentry and Gabby’s (Eleanor Tomlinson) father. Julia Davis (Sally4Ever) plays Rita, head of human resources at Greg’s (Stephen Merchant) company.
You can see them all in action at 9pm on 25th October, when the series premieres on BBC One. Here’s the new trailer:
The Offenders: First look at Stephen Merchant’s BBC One series
17th May 2021
Christopher Walken makes his first lead role on British TV in Stephen Merchant’s The Offenders, and a new image gives us a first look at him and the rest of the cast.
The BBC and Amazon Studios co-production follows seven strangers from different walks of life forced together to complete a Community Payback sentence in Bristol. At first, they seem like archetypes we can easily pigeonhole, but gradually we see behind their façades, understand their hidden depths and what made them the people they are today. We are reminded that no one is all good or all bad. Everyone has a story.
As their unlikely new friendships intersect with their complicated private lives, The Offenders must unite to protect one of their own from Bristol’s most dangerous criminal gang. The show is part crime thriller, character study, and a state-of-the-nation commentary – with humour and heart.
The new image features Walken alongside Stephen Merchant (The Office, Jojo Rabbit), Rhianne Barreto (Honour, Hanna), Gamba Cole (Soon Gone: A Windrush Chronicle, Hanna), Darren Boyd (Killing Eve, Lucky Man), Clare Perkins (EastEnders) and Eleanor Tomlinson (Poldark, The War of the Worlds).
Also in the cast are Richard E Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me?), who plays The Earl, a member of the landed gentry and Gabby’s (Eleanor Tomlinson) father. Julia Davis (Sally4Ever) plays Rita, head of human resources at Greg’s (Stephen Merchant) company.
The series is currently filming in Bristol, and will premiere on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in the UK, and on Amazon Prime Video in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
BBC One orders The Offenders from Stephen Merchant
7th January 2020
Stephen Merchant is returning to the BBC for his next project, a new series called The Offenders.
BBC One has given the green light to the six-part series, which was created by Merchant and Elgin James (co-creator of Mayans M.C.) A co-production between BBC One and Amazon Studios, the series was commissioned by BBC Comedy and BBC One and produced by Big Talk (Mum, Cold Feet, Defending The Guilty) and Stephen Merchant’s Four Eyes.
The Offenders follows seven strangers from different walks of life forced together to complete a Community Payback sentence in Bristol. At first, they seem like archetypes we can easily pigeonhole, but gradually we see behind their façades, understand their hidden depths and what made them the people they are today. We are reminded that no one is all good or all bad. Everyone has a story.
As their unlikely new friendships intersect with their complicated private lives, The Offenders must unite to protect one of their own from Bristol’s most dangerous criminal gang. The show is part crime thriller, character study, and a state-of-the-nation commentary – with humour and heart.
The series was commissioned for the BBC by Charlotte Moore, Director of Content; Shane Allen, Controller Comedy Commissioning and Kate Daughton, Head of Comedy.
Stephen Merchant, who directs and co-stars, says: “The Offenders is a long-standing passion project for me. My parents used to work in the Community Service world and I was always intrigued that the many and varied people they dealt with only had one thing in common: they’d committed a crime.
“Ever since The Office, I’ve loved finding ways to bring unlikely groups of people together and watch the sparks fly. As a writer I always include humour, but with The Offenders I also get to add drama, pathos, crime genre thrills and say something optimistic about the common humanity that unites us all, whatever our background.
“The Offenders’ mix of light and shade, dark and comic, middle-class angst with inner-city grit, reflects the unlikely partnership of me and Elgin. I grew up in suburbia, whereas Elgin spent his early life building a national street gang until a police investigation landed him in prison. Despite coming from different sides of the tracks, Elgin and I share a love of convincing characters and authentic, engaging, human stories.”
The Lead Director for the series is Stephen Merchant and the Producer is Nickie Sault (The Virtues, World On Fire).
The series will premiere on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in the UK and on Amazon Prime Video in the United States, Canada and Australia. Filming will take place in Bristol.