As episodes reshot for TV, with Steptoe and TiIl Death...

The Missing Hancocks could be set to return to Radio 4, after appearing to be axed.

The news comes as it is revealed that episodes of Hancock's Half Hour are being re-recorded for television – along with Steptoe and Son and Till Death Us Do Part.

The Lost Sitcoms will air on BBC Four as part of the Corporation's sitcom celebration, commemorating 60 years since Hancock made the transition to television.

Casts are yet to be announced for the revivals, but studio audiences are being sought for the new recordings, beginning in Glasgow later this month.

They follow the reboot of Are You Being Served?, which is currently filming, and Michael Crawford reprising his performance as Frank Spencer for Sport Relief.

Remakes of Porridge, Up Pompeii, The Good Life and Keeping Up Appearances have also reportedly been lined up.

Neil Pearson, who is co-producing The Lost Sitcoms and co-directing the Hancock segment confirmed that it was in 'fairly early stages of pre-production'.

The former Drop The Dead Donkey star also denied that Radio 4 have cancelled The Missing Hancocks, which he produces.

Kevin McNally, who plays 'the lad himself' in the remakes, tweeted in January that the BBC had called time on the show with 10 of the 20 missing episodes still unrecorded, lamenting that 'despite good listening figures and healthy CD sales the BBC are abandoning our project half way thru'.

However, Pearson – who rediscovered the lost episodes in his capacity as a collector of antiquarian books – says that the show is 'still very much on the table for the next round of commissioning. It's not axed'.

Radio 4 were 'very keen to get me in and reassure me that wasn't the case. They didn't have space for the show for the autumn schedule, which is where we normally produce and transmit.

'We're very much in contention for a recommission for series three. While nothing is set in stone and nothing can be promised, which I don't expect it to be, I do expect the show to get favourable hearings because it's done very well in its first two incarnations'.

The Missing Hancocks co-starred Kevin Eldon as Bill Kerr, Simon Greenall as Sid James and Robin Sebastian as Kenneth Williams, with David Cann, Margaret Cabourn-Smith and Susy Kane.

The BBC's pre-1980s policy of wiping tapes has led to many episodes of classic sitcoms being lost, including 26 of Hancock's Half Hour and 22 of Till Death Us Do Part, though the BFI's annual 'Missing Believed Wiped' seasons have recovered many lost tapes since appeals began.

All of the missing episodes of Steptoe and Son were belatedly found as recordings made for writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson in the 1960s and 70s by a BBC engineer.

- by Jay Richardson

Published: 9 Mar 2016