Good news for Penelope Keith lovers and there are lots of us out there. The BBC is rumoured to be planning a one-off Christmas revival of To The Manor Born. The hit series starred Keith as down-on-her-luck toff Audrey fforbes-Hamilton and dashing Peter Bowles as nouveau riche businessman Richard De Vere. The last episode of this odd couple romance went out way back in 1981, so it is best to strike now before licence payers' money has to be splashed out on zimmer frames for the cast.

If the BBC is expecting a ratings smash, however, I hope that they have studied their history. TTMB regularly got ratings of around 20 million and one episode is the joint 14th highest-watched programme. When Audrey and Richard finally held hands 23.9 million viewers tuned in – more than watched England lose to Argentina in the 1998 World Cup.

TTMB was good, but was it that good? Of course, times were different then. We should all know that there were only three channels in the late seventies, but what is less well-known is that when TTMB first went out in the autumn of 1979 there were actually only two. An ITV strike meant that the commercial channel was off the air from August to October, leaving the way clear for TTMB to build up a huge, loyal following which stayed when ITV reappeared. Penelope Keith obviously had a following after her success as uber-snob Margo in The Good Life, but without that autumn of discontent it would probably not have done half as well as it did. Maybe if ITV, C4 and Five down tools, the internet implodes, Sky's satellite crashes and Blockbuster shuts up shop TTMB might repeat its success.

And talking of retro-comedy, a forthcoming C4 sketch show pilot apparently features a reversal of the old racist Love They Neighbour set-up. This time a couple of black yuppies (one played by Big Brother's Derek Laud) find themselves living next door to a pair of Jade Goody-style chavs. Sounds a lots like Goodness Gracious Me's 'Going For An English' classic sketch with a side order of class snobbery thrown in for good measure. But as To The Manor Born's success proved, us Brits love nothing more than a splash of snobbery.