Well chaps, for those of you who saw Graham Norton last night this news will come of no surprise to you but it felt like Christmas at Chez Snafu last night I can tell you. Alan Davies talked of the new episode currently in production with a view to air it at Christmas. Just when you thought life couldn't get any better Sheridan Smith will star as his new assistant and if she is any where near as good in this as she is as Doctor Who assistant Lucy Miller we are in for a hell of ride.

The only way life could get any better is to hear the news that Alan has been cast as the good Doctor himself when DT leaves the show.

Alan Davies is set to return as Jonathan Creek for a one-off special written by David Renwick, due for transmission later this year on BBC One. The popular, award-winning comedy drama about the adventures of Jonathan Creek, the master of illusion who uses his brilliance and intellect to explain the unexplainable, begins filming this summer with guest star Sheridan Smith (Love Soup; Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps). Stuart Milligan returns as illusionist Adam Klaus, Creek's employer. Alan Davies says: "For the last five years whenever I've passed a locked room I've thought there might be a mystery lurking behind it, so I'm very happy to return to Jonathan Creek and to have something to actually solve. "I'm also chuffed that Sheridan Smith is joining us, she's going to be great." Writer David Renwick adds: "After a five-year break I think we're all looking forward to getting Creek back on the screen and the BBC appear to be quite excited, so fingers crossed. When Creek is called in to solve unexplained events in a vast Gothic house, following several disappearances inside a gloomy old attic known as "The Nightmare Room", he is completely baffled. For 70 years the room has been claiming lives. Could the ghost of a madman who preys upon human flesh really be to blame? When two young women take shelter there from a raging thunderstorm one night, it's not long before the ominous "presence" has claimed another victim. Determined to get to the truth about what has happened to her friend, the fearlessly sceptical Joey Ross (Sheridan Smith) finds herself working alongside veteran lateral thinker Jonathan Creek. Together they embark on a complex, often dangerous, investigation into a mystery which only continues to deepen... Can Jonathan Creek once again shed light on the riddle and render the impossible possible? Or are his once formidable powers of deduction about to be eclipsed by the raw intuition of his younger counterpart?

Lucy Lumsden, Controller, Comedy Commissioning, says: "We're delighted to have Jonathan Creek back on BBC One and with the addition of Sheridan Smith we should be in for a real treat."