James Corden is back in the UK and characteristically busy. Last year, the 45-year-old left his job as Los Angeles-based chat show host of The Late Late Show on CBS. A Christmas special is planned for Gavin & Stacey, the acclaimed BBC sitcom he created with co-star Ruth Jones. There’s talk of reviving One Man, Two Guvnors, the National Theatre’s critically lauded hit comedy that transferred to Broadway, winning Corden a Tony award in 2012.
And later this month, Corden will appear at London’s Old Vic in a short run of Joe Penhall’s new play, The Constituent, helmed by the theatre’s artistic director, Matthew Warchus. Corden’s first stage role since One Man, Two Guvnors, it’s seen as something of a departure (a gamble) for Corden – a serious work about the escalating risks of public service in politics.
All this, but in the UK at least, a question seems to dangle eternally above Corden’s head, like a public relations sword of Damocles.
Put bluntly, why don’t you like him? Why do sizeable swathes of the British public appear to have it in for him?
He’s a decent writer and straight man who keeps trying to be a goofy comedic lead.
The core problem is that being nice is an act, for him. He’d honestly hold a better reputation if he had leaned into being a dick. But no: he’s on the same vector as Elon Musk, desperately wanting people to love him, while caring vanishingly little for anyone beneath him.