Stewart Lee has revealed how he and his comedy partner Richard Herring nearly wrote a sitcom for TV stars Ant and Dec.

In an interview for The New Blackmore Vale Magazine Lee recalled what happened:

"When I was in a double act with Richard Herring, we had them on our show. I can’t remember exactly why but they were in a kind of crate and jumped out of it – they were really good sports. At the turn of the century, they decided they wanted to do a sitcom and I wrote a proposal. I may have co-written it with Richard, I can’t recall.

The idea was they were lighthouse keepers and lived together, it was going to be a kind of Samuel Beckett thing. Really weird things would be washed up on the shore and once a week Cat Deeley would arrive in a rowing boat. They really wanted to do it but in the end they did a remake of The Likely Lads, which was a classic 70s sitcom about Geordie blokes that liked football."

Read the full interview here.

Stewart Lee picture by Steve Ullathorne