Mike Myers making comedy comeback playing seven characters in new Netflix series

Mike Myers is making a comedy comeback, playing seven characters in a new comedy series about a secret society, Netflix has announced.

The star of the Shrek and Austin Powers films will appear in The Pentaverate, a show about five men who have been working to influence world events since the Black Plague of 1347, the streaming firm said.

At the beginning of the series, an unlikely Canadian journalist finds himself embroiled in a mission to uncover the truth.

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Myers, 58, also created The Pentaverate and will serve as an executive producer. It's the comic's first major comedy role since fronting the short-lived TV reboot of The Gong Show as Tommy Maitland from 2017-2018. He appeared in minor roles in two 2018 films - Terminal and Bohemian Rhapsody - but hasn't led a major movie release since 2008's The Love Guru.

Netflix has announced the list of his co-stars.

Crazy Rich Asians star Ken Jeong, comedian Keegan-Michael Key, Absolutely Fabulous’s Jennifer Saunders and It’s A Sin’s Lydia West will also feature.

Myers previously referenced The Pentaverate in 1993 dark comedy So I Married An Axe Murderer, in which he played both the lead character and his cantankerous father.

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In that film Canadian-American Myers claimed the secret society’s members included the Queen, the Vatican, the Getty family and fried chicken expert Colonel Sanders.

Production is under way on The Pentaverate, which consists of six episodes.

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