Dexter Sol Ansell

Egg is the livelier half of the conversation when Dexter Sol Ansell and Peter Claffey get together in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (2026). Claffey gives Dunk an earnest wish to do right; Ansell supplies the cheekiness that stops their exchanges becoming solemn. The comedy has an ease that makes their affection believable, rather than something we must accept because the story requires it. We grew fond of them sooner than we expected, because Dunk's decency survives the jokes and Egg remains good company.

Ansell's earlier work took him from Emmerdale (2016) to The Midwich Cuckoos (2022), then to young Coriolanus Snow in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023). Those smaller parts give way to a co-leading role as Egg, and that is the important change for our purposes. A comic partnership asks for more than an appealing introduction. Ansell has to remain interesting alongside Claffey, and the pleasure of their exchanges lasts beyond the initial mismatch.

Directors Sarah Adina Smith and Owen Harris help by keeping the central relationship convincing when the programme grows darker. Some of the early pleasure diminishes, but neither performance becomes a reason to stop watching. Ansell's liveliness still belongs alongside Claffey's earnestness; we can take their affection seriously without wishing the jokes would stop. The needless coarseness and the stretches of thin storytelling are more troublesome. The actors deserve credit for keeping us interested, though they cannot make those shortcomings disappear.

We would be cautious about turning this into a grand claim for Ansell's future. What we can recommend is specific: his comic ease with Claffey, and the affection that makes their scenes worth following when the plot stretches thin. Other roles will tell us how much of that pleasure depends on this particular pairing. Try A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms for the company, with a reasonable tolerance for toilet humour.