The Outlaws: Stephen Merchant on his return to Bristol - and his family doing his laundry

Stephen Merchant joked he left laundry for his family while filming his new comedy drama series, The Outlaws, in Bristol.

The first episode airs tonight on BBC One and follows a week of publicity, culminating with the falling of a costume lorry into the city’s floating harbour last week.

The series, which follows a group of disparate characters thrown together to complete community service, was filmed across the city with The Galleries, College Green and Park Street among the locations.

Yet the homecoming for Stephen, who grew up in Hanham, was impacted by the first lockdown, which was triggered not long after filming started.

Speaking to BristolWorld at the show’s premier earlier this month, Stephen said: “The disappointment for me was that I was excited to come back to Bristol.

“When I was here there were so many amazing restaurants, cultural spaces and all this amazing vibrancy that’s here now... I was really excited to experience it but because of Covid it was all locked down.”

“So it was so frustrating because we were filming here but we couldn’t go out and enjoy the city.”

And with his family still living in the city, Stephen was also restricted on how much he could see them, and get his laundry done.

He said: I was hoping they’d be bringing me meals every night and taking my laundry - yes they done that but they couldn’t come in the house, I just had to leave my laundry outside the door - very much treating it like a hotel, really.”

Despite lockdown, Stephen said the opportunity to film in the city had been “really great”, adding that the people had “opened their doors to us”.

The idea of the series came from his mother, who used to work in community service in the city and would share her stories of the characters she would meet.

Stephen said: “I thought well that’s an interesting backdrop for a show, and I can have a little sort of crime element, I can make it funny and dramatic.”

One of the stars of the show is Bristol-born actor Gamba Cole, who plays a security guard called Christian.

He said: “It feels like a full circle moment - being here, leaving, coming back for work. Being here is nice, really special.

The first series of The Outlaws begins on BBC One tonight (October 25) at 9pm, with episodes following it every Monday night after.