Would You Like to Live in a World Where Hugh Laurie is the Pirate Blackbeard? Then I Have Good News

Hugh Laurie, an actor who’s known primarily in the states for playing the misanthropic Dr. House to a tee but who is probably equally as famous in the nerd world for his association with Stephen Fry and Rowan Atkinson’s implausibly historical comedy series Blackadder, is in between projects at the moment, so far as we plebes are aware. House finished up its last season in May, and we we’re looking forward to whatever Laurie did next, comedic or dramatic, although we did hope it was something that would prove to more Americans who’ve only seen him on House that, yes, his natural accent is a British one.

We didn’t dare hope that he’d be a pirate.

See, NBC is doing this 10-episode miniseries on the (likely at least slightly fictionalized, no doubt) life of Edward Teach, more often known as Blackbeard, a notorious English pirate who preyed on ships in the West Indies in the early 1700’s. And Hugh Laurie is in talks to play the dread pirate himself.

The 10-episode Crossbones is set in 1715 on the Bahamian island of New Providence, the first functioning democracy in the Americas, where the diabolical pirate Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard (Laurie), reigns over a rogue nation of thieves, outlaws and miscreant sailors. Part shantytown, part marauder’s paradise, this is a place like no other on earth — and a mounting threat to international commerce.

While New Providence is a real island that Blackbeard (and quite a lot of other pirates) frequented as a base for about ten years, I’m not so sure it could have been considered a nation, much less one with enough of a non-transient population to sustain a real democracy, but who cares Hugh Laurie pirate show. I can’t wait to see his beard.

I can’t wait to see his beard covered in flaming pitch.

Okay, the flaming pitch beard might also have been an embellishment, but Wikipedia is telling me that Blackbeard did at least put lit fuses in his hat to frighten people, and it never lies.

(Deadline via ScreenRant.)

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