As Billy Connolly joins the roll call of familiar British stars that includes Martin Freeman and Stephen Fry, how can The Hobbit maintain the originality and mystery of the trilogy?More evidence has emerged suggesting that The Hobbit, Peter Jackson's forthcoming two-part prequel to his own Lord of the Rings trilogy, might just be a very different beast to its predecessors. With the news that Billy Connolly is to take the role of dwarf king Dain Ironfoot in his adaptation of JRR Tolkien's debut Middle-earth-set novel, Jackson appears to be taking stunt casting on the project to a level of which even Quentin Tarantino might be proud.One of the factors which gave the Kiwi film-maker's earlier triptych its potent air of ...