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He’s helped write movies that are widely adored and have collectively earned more than $1 billion. He’s co-created a sitcom that has become one of the BBC’s most successful exports, with a U.S. adaptation now onto its
sixth season.
And yet, Simon Farnaby is perhaps most recognizable for mugging his rather expressive and jovial face, usually beneath a crop of untamed curly hair, across a series of scene-stealing comic cameos. And in almost every one of them — including all three “Paddington” movies and his latest feature, the all-star “The Magic Faraway Tree” — his character is called Barry.
“I just thought it was a funny name,” Farnaby says with a smirk. “But I have a cousin Barry, and he’s a funny guy. So I feel like I’m allowed.”
In “Paddington,” Farnaby was Barry the smug, inept and tea-slurping security guard at the Geographers’ Guild who shamelessly flirts with a Scottish cleaning lady (actually Hugh Bonneville’s Henry Brown undercover in makeup and a pink apron).
Barry the smug security guard returned in “Paddington 2,” again with a cup of tea in his hand but this time on the night shift at St. Paul’s Cathedral and chasing an “unusually attractive nun” (Hugh Grant’s devilish thespian Phoenix Buchanan in one of many disguises).
The wildly tailored and egotistic Buchanan — a genius performance by Grant that earned him a BAFTA nomination and helped launched something of a post-rom-com renaissance — was actually Farnaby’s creation.
“An actor who was a villain felt good,” he says, noting that he “had actors on the brain,” having been co-writing Brit cult comedy film “Mindhorn,” about a faded ’80s TV star (in which he played a hilariously matter-of-fact Dutch ex stunt man) at the same time. He also had Hugh Grant on the brain for the role, with “Hugh Grant” literally written as the original name of Buchanan’s character in the first draft of the “Paddington 2” script. “So when we sent it to him we thought we’d better change it … because of the whole narcissism thing!”
Despite his funny cousin, however, Farnaby didn’t come up with Barry.
“It was probably Paul’s idea to call him ‘Barry,’” he says. “He’s good with names.”
The Paul he’s referring to is, of course, “Paddington” writer and director Paul King, the man who brought the beloved Peruvian bear back into the limelight and to cinematic glory. Through a creative affinity borne out “watching weird comedy shows from the ’90s,” the two have been making each other laugh for more than 25 years and collaborating across stage, TV and film, which hit a high note (at least financially) with the Timothée Chalamet chocolate fest “Wonka,” and very nearly entered the “Star Wars” universe. Next up for the pair: Sony Pictures’ Labubu movie.
We’re talking over lunch at The Bull & Last, a historic and hallowed gastropub on the leafy fringes of London’s Hampstead Heath. It’s Farnaby’s local (he turns down the waitress’ offer of a pint of his usual beer due to a three-hour Labubu-based Zoom meeting later that afternoon). He lives nearby with his wife, fellow comic actor Claire Keelan, known for “The Trip” and “Nathan Barley,” and their young daughter (and dog, one of the reasons for being so close to the ample greenery of the Heath).
The couple — who first met on the set of 2005 Brit TV film “Perfect Day” (funnily enough, about a wedding) — previously shared a house a short walk away, where, drawing immediate envious resentment, they were neighbours of Monty Python star Michael Palin (and, to make matters worse, would attend his Christmas parties). Farnaby, who says “Life of Brian” was “huge for me growing up” and remains one of his favorites, “can confirm” that’s Palin’s long-held reputation as one of the nicest men in showbiz is accurate.
But it could have all been very different from supping mulled wine with comedy heroes.
Born in County Durham towards the far north of England, Farnaby was, so he claims, all set to be a professional golfer (thanks to his dad, a greenkeeper). “I was really, really good — I could have turned pro when I was 15,” he says. But it was Brit comedy duo Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, known for their delightfully surreal and silly sketches on TV in the early ’90s, that took his eye off the fairway and, as he notes, “changed everything.”
Farnaby went from Vic & Bob-inspired skits in school with his brother (“really weird and very British things about dogs and cabbages and lord mayors”) to stand-up performances while at university to, eventually, the Edinburgh Fringe as part of a comedy sketch threesome. It was there, in 2000, where he was introduced to King by a producer who Farnaby says “was going around picking all the weirdest people he could find.”
The two immediately began conjuring up silliness together and within a few years were part of “The Mighty Boosh,” the cult TV show co-created by Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding that took the surreal chaos of Vic & Bob and structured it into a more cohesive, yet still absurd, framework. King directed all three seasons of the “Boosh,” while Farnaby became a regular supporting castmember (and would play characters such as a man with his head shaped like a conker).
In 2009, based on elements of a stage show they created, would come “Bunny and the Bull,” King’s feature directorial debut and a darkly quirky road movie starring Farnaby as a boisterous heavy-drinker who takes his agoraphobic friend on a bonkers tour of Europe. The film didn’t quite set the box office alight, but its whimsically lo-fi design and creative use of stop-motion animation, papier-mache, cardboard cut outs and basically anything to hand caught the attention of uber producer David Heyman, then in development on “Paddington” and looking for the right sort of filmmaker to bring it to life.
For the first “Paddington,” awash with the same wonderfully imaginative visuals seen in “Bunny,” Farnaby wasn’t credited (aside from “Barry,” of course). But over the years of its development, he’d be King’s regular sounding board. “He’d call me and go, ‘Can you come in and just help find some comedy?’” he explains. “And then he’d say, ‘Well, I’m glad you came in today.’”
“Paddington” wound up being a major, franchise-spawning hit, earning more than $324 million globally in 2015. For the sequel, Farnaby was “in on the ground floor,” with King having asked him to join as his official co-writer. In no small part thanks to creations such as the villainous Buchanan (not least the spectacular post-credits prison dance scene), “Paddington 2” would soon be labeled a modern-day masterpiece, regularly cited as one of the greatest films ever made (it briefly toppled “Citizen Kane” at the top of Rotten Tomatoes’ charts).
“Paddington 2” would also elevate the King-Farnaby partnership into exciting new territories.
Among the incoming offers was from Disney for a “Star Wars” film that King would direct and the pair would write (Farnaby’s second brush with the Force after a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance as a rebel pilot in “Rogue One”).
“So we got distracted by that for a while,” he says, adding that their idea was based around a robot and didn’t involve any of the key “Star Wars” characters, something he acknowledges might have played a part in it not working out (although the concept is being reworked into something else). “They were like, we really need it to be a ‘Star Wars’ movie, which is probably why it didn’t get turned into a ‘Star Wars’ movie!” he says with a chuckle. “But we never really nailed it.”
Instead, they pivoted to the Roald Dahl prequel “Wonka,” which also came to them via Heyman and would turn into the all-singing, all-dancing, Chalamet-fronted festive box office behemoth, earning some $634 million for Warner Bros. The tone of the film was “slightly more grown up” than Paddington, Farnaby says, but still ticked enough wacky boxes. As he notes: “We did have a laundry operated by dogs.”
And Farnaby, once again, had a small yet hilarious role cameo as a security guard, now stationed at a zoo. Due to rights issues with the “Paddington” producer, however, this time he had to be renamed. “Barry belonged to Studiocanal, so he became Basil,” he says. “Not that anyone cared.”
But Barry would, however, triumphantly return for 2024’s long-in-the-works “Paddington in Peru,” now as a flight attendant, his repeat failings in security clearly forcing him to change professions.
Because of “Wonka,” King and Farnaby had stepped back from the world of Paddington, but they were still credited as writers on the third feature having given the incoming team a broad idea for the story. “We felt like we’d done London quite a lot, so maybe we need to go somewhere else, like Peru, and somewhere where there’s a mystery with Aunt Lucy,” he says.
“Paddington in Peru” didn’t hit quite the same heights as its predecessors, but that didn’t stop Farnaby from trying his hand at bringing another piece of classic children’s IP to the big screen.
“The Magic Faraway Tree,” which releases in the U.S. on Aug. 21, is based on the much-loved book series by British author Enid Blyton and gives a modern spin on a somewhat old-fashioned story of a family who live near an enchanted forest and a tree that transports them to magical lands. It’s not Farnaby’s first solo screenplay. That would be 2021’s comedy-drama “The Phantom of the Open,” about the world’s worst golfer (a film he describes as “love letter” to his dad and a way of saying, “Look, I’m not a professional golfer, but here’s a golf film”).
“Faraway Tree” — which has already been a hit in the U.K., where it came out earlier this year — is certainly the biggest feature he’s penned by himself, however, with a budget in the $30 million+ range. It’s also a quintessentially British film stacked with a quintessentially British cast. Leading the pack is Andrew Garfield (who had just dropped out of Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein”) and Claire Foy (who also brought her daughter along for the ride in a minor role). “Having those two really elevated my writing,” says Farnaby.
Alongside Garfield and Foy, “Faraway Tree,” boasts an impressive assortment of talent, including Jennifer Saunders (a friend of Farnaby’s wife, Keelan) and former neighbor Palin, appearing in a scene that could be lifted straight out of a Monty Python movie. There’s another scene that Farnaby says he wrote as a “little homage” to another favorite, “Blazing Saddles” (unsurprisingly involving a significant amount of farting).
It was actually Keelan who was a huge fan of the Blyton books growing up, so they bought a few copies and read them to their daughter, who was 3 at the time. “And they were great — and with all these really comedic characters like Saucepan Man and Moonface,” he says. For the new hook, he turned to 1970s Brit sitcom “The Good Life,” which Keelan had been watching on loop during lockdown. “She said, ‘Why don’t you do it about a family who have moved from the city to the countryside?,’ and that unlocked everything.”
Farnaby also wrote himself and his wife cameo roles, playing an on-screen married couple. Farnaby’s character, a thickly-accented and mostly-incomprehensible farmer, was, of course, called Barry.
Around the same time he was working on “Bunny and the Bull,” Farnaby became a principal member of “Horrible Histories,” the BBC’s live-action sketch show for children focusing on some of the more comically gruesome and scatological elements of world history (as in, plenty of poo and fart references). Very Monty Python and Blackadder-esque in style, it drew immediate acclaim in the U.K., with highlights including Farnaby’s turn as a deadpan Grim Reaper hosting a talent show called “Stupid Deaths.”
Much like with King, Farnaby and his fellow horrible historians (which included alumni from “Peep Show” and “The Thick of It”) were soon devising other, mostly silly, material. The Sky sitcom “Yonderland” followed, before they were asked by the BBC’s head of comedy commissioner Shane Allen to come up with something.
“We had a few ideas, and just thought, what do we do? We dress up and play different characters from different historical times,” he recalls.
“Ghosts,” which launched in early 2019 and followed the antics of a group of squabbling spirits from periods across thousands of years as they haunt a country mansion, was a ratings smash, billed in the press as a “deliriously daft supernatural romp.” Farnaby’s character — one of the show’s more modern roles — was classic Farnaby: a sleazy, smug ’90s politician who roams the house in a suit without trousers, having died amid a sex scandal. “It was based on that time when the Tories were always getting into trouble,” he says, adding that he “also used to do a good Tony Blair impression.”
“Ghosts” was also that golden ticket format that could be easily tweaked for different markets, not least the U.S., where CBS’s remake was an immediate breakout hit, becoming the No. 1 comedy on Paramount+. Australian, French, Greek and German adaptations would follow, each with their own localized historical characters (in the U.S. version, Farnaby’s pants-less politician became a pants-less stockbroker, apparently to avoid the “divisiveness of saying he was Republican or Democrat,” while for the German one he notes that they, perhaps understandably, “just decided to steer clear of the Nazis.”)
For all the success of “Ghosts” and the rewards it’s reaped for the sales execs at BBC Studios (it was its top-selling scripted format of 2025), Farnaby asserts that it’s “not as lucrative as people think” for its troupe of creators. “I think the days of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant are over,” he says of “The Office” pair who pocketed a fortune in royalties when their show sailed across the Atlantic. “We have a joke: when are we going to get our yacht? The yachts have not been forthcoming. But you can’t complain.”
The original British “Ghosts” series wrapped in 2023 following five seasons, but a movie spinoff, based around “a good idea that we hadn’t done before” (and with Farnaby back with no pants on), shot earlier this year and is due out in the U.K. in October.
From his sleazy “Ghosts” MP to the “Paddington” and “Wonka” cameos and even Phoenix Buchanan, there’s connective tissue linking many of Farnaby’s on-screen creations. Primarily, they’re often characters that have been granted a high status or level of authority, only for him to “cut them down and make them pathetic and stupid.” It’s been a classic staple over decades of British comedy, which from Basil Fawlty to David Brent has rejoiced in puncturing pomposity to reveal idiocy and incompetence. But with Farnaby, there’s definitely a more gentle, silly and surreal nature to it all.
“What Simon’s really good at is making sense of the ridiculous,” says Danny Perkins, the veteran producer who tapped Farnaby to write “Magic Faraway Tree” and, while at Optimum Releasing and then leading Studiocanal U.K., was heavily involved in “Bunny and the Bull,” “Mindhorn” and the first two “Paddington” movies. “He’s great at coming up with the most outrageous things that make no sense and then grounding them all, finding loads of humor, but real heart. It’s crazy, but then it’s really moving.”
And there’s plenty more moving yet outrageous craziness to come.
Following our lunch, he’s rushing home for a lengthy call about the Labubu movie, first announced last year by Sony Pictures with King set to direct.
King was originally co-writing with Steve Levinson, but due to the director’s more immediate commitments on the Tom Holland-starring Fred Astaire biopic, Farnaby has joined the project, still in early development. To many, the Labubu dolls might be a mostly deranged looking line of collectable monsters with jagged teeth, and even Farnaby describes them as “the toys girls put on their backpacks.” But he’s since discovered that there’s more behind the Labubu’s demonic eyes, having had a “really lovely backstory” presented to him by their creator about where they came from, all based in Nordic mythology. “We thought there could be a really touching and beautiful film there, based on these stories,” he says.
While their shot at “Star Wars” may have misfired, King and Farnaby’s “unspecified robot” idea wasn’t dismissed by Disney. “They basically said, it’s not right for ‘Star Wars,’ but do you want to rework it as a sci-fi film?” he says. “So we’re working on that now.”
There are also, hopefully, more “Faraway Tree” installments to come, with Farnaby working on sequels based on Blyton’s other books in the series. But whether these happen may largely depend on how the first film does in the U.S. when it comes out later this month.
One sequel Farnaby says is unlikely, despite its success, is that of “Wonka.” There had been plans for him and King to reunite to cook up more musical adventures in the confectionary, but he says the stumbling block is Chalamet, who since the first movie has underlined his serious actor credentials and landed two Oscar nominations with “A Complete Unknown” and “Marty Supreme.”
“He wants to do one, but he’s not sure about timing or what he wants to do next,” says Farnaby, who claims “Wonka 2” is “delayed indefinitely.”
But a franchise that is moving forward is “Paddington,” with a fourth film recently officially confirmed. Farnaby and King are far too busy doing — many — other things to be inside the core creative team, but they’ve been asked to meet with incoming writers Armando Iannucci and Simon Blackwell. “So they are involving us,” he says. “I assume we’ll just be part of the conversation, but for me and Paul, they’re really our comedy heroes. Just to get in the room with Armando for a day and talk about what he wants to do is going to be really fantastic.”
Some of that conversation should also be about where Barry finds himself in the next “Paddington.”
But where Barry does go next — and whether he makes it back to security following his stint in the air — he’ll never top his greatest cameo appearance yet: as a footman serving the late Queen Elizabeth II afternoon tea in Paddington Bear’s famed platinum jubilee sketch.
As it happens, Farnaby starred alongside an actual, real-life footman in the BAFTA-winning skit, which aired in the summer of 2022 and featured the monarch herself (just months before she passed away). The two wound up having an interaction so ridiculous he may as well have written it himself.
“We’re standing there and he went, ‘I suppose you’re going to be called Barry in this, are you?’ I said I hadn’t really thought about it, but probably. And he goes, ‘Do want to know what my name is?'”
“Is it Barry?”
“‘Yes,’ he said”
Farnaby immediately apologized.
“And he went, ‘No, I get it. You don’t meet many Barrys. It is a funny name.’ So we then had this really funny conversation, while both dressed as footmen.”
