{"id":564360,"date":"2026-05-03T17:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T17:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/564360\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T17:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T17:58:08","slug":"stephen-merchant-charms-staff-at-hope-cove-pub-he-was-a-lovely-guest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/564360\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Merchant charms staff at Hope Cove pub: &#8216;He was a lovely guest&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">A famous face was spotted at a local pub in Devon yesterday (Saturday, May 2). Actor and comedian Stephen Merchant visited <a aria-label=\"\" class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.devonlive.com\/all-about\/pubs-and-bars\" rel=\"follow nofollow noopener\" tabindex=\"0\" target=\"_self\">The Hope &amp; Anchor Inn<\/a> in Hope Cope at around 7pm and was described as a &#8220;lovely&#8221; guest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">The team at the Hope &amp; Anchor posted a photo of their celebrity customer on Facebook, captioning it: &#8220;A wonderful busy day and joined by the wonderful Stephen Merchant and his family for a meal visiting Hope Cove&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">Speaking to Devon Live, manager Abi said: &#8220;I knew straight away who he was. He was lovely. He&#8217;s very very nice.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">According to Abi, the Hot Fuzz star ordered a seafood linguine and went on to leave a generous tip. A frequent collaborator with Ricky Gervais, Merchant played a huge role in the development of The Office and Extras.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">In addition to writing and directing, he&#8217;s also had acting roles in films like Jojo Rabbit, The Invention of Lying, and The Girl in the Spider&#8217;s Web. Gamers might also recognise him from his iconic turn as Wheatley in Portal 2.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">The Hope &amp; Anchor Inn is a popular pub near <a aria-label=\"\" class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.devonlive.com\/all-about\/kingsbridge\" rel=\"follow nofollow noopener\" tabindex=\"0\" target=\"_self\">Kingsbridge<\/a>. They enjoy largely positive reviews, with 4.5\/5 star rating out of over 1900 Google reviews at time of writing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A famous face was spotted at a local pub in Devon yesterday (Saturday, May 2). Actor and comedian&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,67808,2191,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-564360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-kingsbridge","tag-pubs-and-bars","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}