Lee Evans is to star in a new two-hour ITV1 period drama.

The comic will play the eponymous hero in a new adaptation of HG Wells's The History of Mr Polly to be screened later this year.

The bittersweet drama, set in Kent in 1910, follows Polly as he leaves his loveless marriage to find happiness with a pub landlady Nancy.  Anne-Marie Duff and Julie Graham are Evans’s co-stars.

Executive co-producer Michele Buck said: ‘The History of Mr Polly is a beautiful tale about following your dreams and how you can alter the course of your life if you are brave enough to make the changes.’

His colleague Damien Timmer added that writer Adrian Hodges ‘has done a fantastic job at adapting this classic story for a modern TV audience’ and  that ‘Lee Evans is just delightful as Mr Polly’.