The casts has been announced for BBC Four's The Lost Sitcoms, a series involving three recreations of classic sitcom scripts.

As previously reported, the BBC is re-making an episode of each of Hancock's Half Hour, Till Death Us Do Part and Steptoe And Son for which a script still exists but the original recording has been lost from the BBC archives.

The new version of Steptoe And Son will feature Jeff Rawle (George from Drop The Dead Donkey) and Ed Coleman (Moritz from Spy) as "one of the most successful double acts in the history of British television", Albert Steptoe and his son Harold, respectively. The episode, A Winter's Tale, sees Harold desperate to go on a skiing holiday but he doesn't want Albert there, under any circumstances.

The new version of the selected Till Death Us Do Part episode will see Simon Day (The Fast Show, Brian Pern) take on the character of Alf Garnett, the role which was famously previously played by Warren Mitchell.

in the episode, A Woman's Place Is In The Home, Alf arrives home to find himself in an empty house with a burnt supper and sets about putting things right using his local telephone box. Other cast announced today for the episode include Lizzie Roper (Boy Meets Girl) as Else; Sydney Rae White (Uncle) as Rita, and Carl Au (Waterloo Road) as Mike.

The third of The Lost Sitcom episodes will be Hancock's Half Hour. As previously announced, Kevin McNally, who also stars as 'the lad himself' in Radio 4's The Missing Hancocks will be reprising his role as Tony Hancock for the TV episode.

It has also been confirmed that Robin Sebastian will be back as Kenneth Williams, and Kevin Eldon will be John Vere. Also added to the cast to record The New Neighbour script is Jon Culshaw (Dead Ringers) as Sid James and Katy Wix (Anna & Katy) as Hattie Jacques. The story of the episode focuses around Hancock's new neighbour, a person who has "a very, very suspicious night-time routine."

Taking about the new versions of the episodes, BBC commissioner Shane Allen says: "When the originals were made and then lost, no-one knew they'd go on to be such classic and well-loved series. It feels rightful and respectful to bring them back to life with a new cast to be appreciated all over again for the brilliant writing they all contain."

The Lost Sitcoms will form part of the BBC's Landmark Sitcom Season, which starts this summer. The new Steptoe And Son episode is being recorded in front of a studio audience tonight (29th March) in Glasgow, with Hancock's Half Hour due to be filmed on the 4th April, and Till Death Us Do Part will be taped on the 10th April.

In related news, as first spotted by the website Beyond The Joke, it would appear Kevin Bishop has been cast in the lead role in a new version of Porridge for BBC One. The one-off episode will focus around Fletcher's grandson, also known as Fletch, who is in prison for computer hacking.