Connolly's time-travelling role

Billy Connolly is to play a time-travelling professor who gets stuck in 14th Century France in his next movie.

The comic will star alongside Anna Friel and David Thewlis in the £60million film Timeline, written by Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton.

It is currently being shot in Canada by Lethal Weapon director Richard Donner, ITV reports.

Billy plays Professor Edward Johnston, who gets sent back to 1357 - he height of the Hundred Years War ­ during an archaeological dig, and his students follow him on a rescue mission.

The film is expected to open next year.

Published: 27 Apr 2002