Fawlty Towers aired it's final episode thirty eight years ago this year and for a long time it looked like that would be the last time we'd ever see John Cleese in a BBC sitcom.

However an announcement from the broadcaster yesterday confirmed that the Monty Python member is to star in a new BBC sitcom called Edith. 

Here's the synopsis of the series released by the BBC. 

"For Edith (Alison Steadman), life is pretty good. She's been a widow for some years now, but her children live locally and drop by regularly, and she enjoys daily visits from Phil (John Cleese), an old boyfriend who now lives across the road.

Phil dreams of marrying Edith, and the pair of them upping sticks and moving abroad to the sunshine. But after months of turning him down, on the happy day Edith finally says "yes", there's a knock on the door - and there on the step, with a large suitcase, is her 50 year old son Roger (Jason Watkins). He announces that he's left his wife, his kids and his good job at the bank, and come home in an attempt to find his lost happiness again. And in a blink, to Edith's dismay and Phil's fury, all dreams are on hold."

“These are the most enjoyable scripts I've been sent in the last 100 years," Cleese said of the the show. "It will also be particularly nice to work with Alison again since we joined forces in Clockwise all that time ago.”

Cleese's enthusiasm is a far cry from the last time he went on the record about the BBC. In 2015 he told Shortlist that:"There's no way I want to work in TV, especially at the BBC,"

"I have a nasty feeling a large proportion of the commissioning editors have no idea what they're doing."

Edith will started filming this summer. 

Via Mashable