Miles Jupp, the actor, comedian and host of BBC Radio 4’s The News Quiz, can’t help but betray how very well brought up he is. Describing his latest role as Cousin Basil in the latest series of ITV’s much-loved period drama The Durrells, he says: “I’m the family’s cousin and a solicitor and very kindly they ask me to do some legal work.”
That “very kindly” is telling. It smacks of precisely the sort of background you’d expect from the son of a United Reformed minister, although Jupp, despite studying divinity at Edinburgh University, is a non-believer. Initial impressions also bring to mind a Boris-Johnsonish young fogey. It’s something to do with the 38-year-old’s ruffled, if fast-vanishing,...