Hugh Laurie, the comic actor famous for his roles as dim-witted, hapless Englishmen in Blackadder and Jeeves and Wooster, faces a bloody clash with some of America’s toughest men, including the Mob boss Tony Soprano and special agent Jack Bauer in this year’s Emmy Awards.

The British actor was nominated yesterday in the category of Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for his role as Gregory House, a misanthropic diagnostician who verbally abuses patients, plays cruel pranks on his colleagues and swigs on a prescription bottle of Vicodin, a painkiller, in the show House MD.

Laurie has been praised for playing the role with a flawless American accent, but the show’s dark humour is peculiarly British.

Laurie is up against the hugely popular James Gandolfini, who played the almost-loveable Mob boss Tony Soprano before the series came to

an end this year with a controversial finale. Kiefer Sutherland is also competing in the category for his role as Jack Bauer in the action series 24. The series, which has portrayed a series of unlikely terror attacks in America, all perpetrated within a few miles of central Los Angeles, has come under harsh criticism this year for repeating itself. Denis Leary and James Spader were also nominated in the Lead Actor category for Rescue Me and Boston Legal respectively.

To judge by its 15 nominations, including one in the all-important Best Drama category, it will be HBO’s The Sopranos that dominates the 59th annual Emmy Awards, which will be presented on September 16.

Chris Albrecht, the TV executive who commissioned The Sopranos, is no longer around to enjoy the glory. He was fired this year after allegedly trying to strangle his girlfriend in a Las Vegas car park. Albrecht, who is now reported to be working on a film version of Sex and the City, subsequently admitted having a problem with alcohol. Other prominent shows in this year’s ceremony will be the hit ABC comedy Ugly Betty and two new NBC shows, Heroes and 30 Rock.

British nominees also include Ricky Gervais, the critics’ favourite, for his role in Extras in the category of Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Comedy Series. This pitches him against Steve Carell, who took the role of David Brent in the American version of Gervais’s classic series The Office.

Other contenders in the category include Tony Shalhoub as the obsessive-compulsive detective Monk, Alec Baldwin as Jack Donaghy in 30 Rock and Charlie Sheen as Charlie Harper in Two and a Half Men.

Jim Broadbent and Samantha Morton are also representing Britain in the miniseries categories, for their roles as Lord Longford and Myra Hindley in the drama Longford.

Sir Ian McKellen, the iconic figure of the British stage, was nominated for his cameo in Extras.

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