Idris Elba’s new Sky advert: why can't he wink?

It must have been churning inside him for his entire professional career. Gnawing away like one of those intestinal worms so beloved of Bruce Parry and supermodels. Tentatively opening script after script, terrified that the words he knows are going to appear before him one day will have suddenly stained the page. He dodged a bullet as Stringer Bell. He managed to march right past it as Nelson Mandela. And, so far, Luther has not detected anything. Perhaps he was starting to relax, thinking he must now be in the clear. Then he blithely opened his latest script for Sky’s On Demand adverts and faced the phrase he’d tried to avoid for his whole adult life: “Idris winks at the camera.”

You see, Idris Elba can’t wink. Instead, as anyone who’s seen the ads will have noted, his face collapses in a grim simulation of a ruptured Fray Bentos pie crust, prodded with a fork. His eyes crease as if someone who has recently been chopping chilies is conducting a thorough prostate exam. It’s the face that people who are afraid of children attempt to make at screaming, disconsolate infants. It’s occasionally displayed at the kiosk in Alton Towers where people collect their souvenir photos after riding Oblivion. It’s the facial expression that suicidal Muppets feign. I’ve no idea what happened to Mr Elba that prevents him from being able to wink. Perhaps he missed that particular day at acting school or was traumatised by Monty Python’s Nudge Nudge sketch at a formative age. Whatever the reason – and we may never know the truth – we can safely say that Idris Elba is not a winker.