British Comedy

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?