They crossed paths briefly last Christmas in Dickens spoof The Bleak Old Shop of Stuff but we’ve not seen a major Mitchell and Webb collaboration since the latter part of 2010, with the fourth series of their BBC2 sketch show and the seventh run of Peep Show.

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Good news for fans, then, as BBC2’s newly announced raft of commissions includes Our Men, a comedy drama starring David Mitchell as Keith Davis, the British ambassador to Tazbekistan (one of the ex-Soviet “Stans”), and Robert Webb as Neil Tilly, his man behind the scenes.

While the ambitious Keith is out representing Britain and attempting to make his mark, his deputy Neil is back at the Embassy running things. It’s a tough posting which sees the pair more likely to be knocking back potentially lethal vodka in the Tazbeki President’s hunting yurt than sipping G&Ts on the lawn.

Written by James Wood and Rupert Walters, Our Men is one of several new comedy commissions from BBC2.

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Sue Perkins stars in self-penned series Heading Out, about a vet preparing to tell her parents she’s gay as she approaches her 40th birthday, while Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmonson are back for a Bottom revival, Hooligans’ Island, and radio character Count Arthur Strong is getting his own TV show, co-written with Father Ted’s Graham Linehan.

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