Citizen Smith, the 1977 to 1980 sitcom starring Robert Lindsay, is the subject of revival rumours.

The classic BBC comedy followed the adventures of 'Wolfie' Smith, a young Marxist "urban guerrilla" living in Tooting, south London. With his slogan "Power to the People", Wolfie attempted to emulate his hero Che Guevara through his own Tooting Popular Front - with little success due to disorganisation, laziness, and general fecklessness.

Now, in an interview with The Independent, Robert Lindsay has revealed he has been approached to update the series.

He explained: "I've been chased by a production company which is very much trying to get Wolfie to run for the Labour Party and bring him back into power. I think that's a fantastic idea."

Citizen Smith was written by John Sullivan, the writer of Only Fools And Horses, who died in 2011. Lindsay commented of the need for a new writer for any revival: "there are moves afoot in the industry to bring Citizen Smith back with some respected figures that I very much admire".

However, Jim Sullivan, one of John's sons who wrote for OFAH sequel The Green Green Grass with his father, appears to have put an end to the proposals.

Writing today, Jim said: "[Today's] stories are news to us - and we own the rights to the series. It's not the first time that people have suggested bringing the series back but that is not something we would want to do.

"Every episode of Citizen Smith was written by Dad - all the lines, ideas and plots were his. As we have said about Only Fools And Horses, the show only ever had one writer and it is going to stay that way."

After the publication of the story this morning, Robert Lindsay took to Twitter to clarify: "I'm afraid there have been many plans to resurrect Wolfie but he rests with his brilliant creator John Sullivan RIP x"

The Independent had speculated: "The rise of [Labour leadership contender] Jeremy Corbyn is set to give the urban guerrilla, who always promised doubters that a Socialist utopia would arrive 'come the glorious day', the chance to get his hands on the levers of power."

Lindsay, who is a socialist in real life and rose to fame in Citizen Smith, says he regrets the comedy coming to an end after four series. "It was a series I never finished. It was just beginning to become huge. You know what happens, you want to be a serious actor, you don't want to do sitcoms. The word 'sitcom' becomes such a dirty word. The press say 'oh, it's only a sitcom.' It's not, it's bloody hard to make it work."

Talking about Jeremy Corbyn running for the Labour leadership, he added: "I don't think Corbyn is a laughing stock at all. I think he's an extremely wonderful politician and I think he's going to run the Labour Party and take the Labour Party back to what it should be. I know he has some controversial views but at least he has views. He's not pandering to America.

"I do think the Labour Party has lost its way and I do think Corbyn is going to take it back and it's just frightening everybody to death. Including Tony Blair and all the others going 'oh my god, we're never going to...' You had your moment, let's go back to basics again."

Robert Lindsay is currently filming a new studio audience sitcom for Gold. In Bull, he plays a man who attempts to run his antiques shop aided and hampered in equal measure by his team of dysfunctional staff. The three-part series will be shown on TV later this year.

This story was re-written on the afternoon of the 11th September 2015 to clarify that the revival was unlikely to go ahead as it didn't have the backing of the Sullivan family.