BBC One is piloting a primetime sitcom about a middle-aged gay couple.

Robert Lindsay and Richard Griffith are lined up to play the partners in George And Bernard Shaw, which is described as a ‘quirky and warm comedy about a gay couple’.

If commissioned, it would see Lindsay make an immediate return to the channel following the axing of My Family – even though he blasted the corporation of treating the show ‘appallingly’

George And Bernard Shaw has been written by John Finnemore, the creator of Radio 4’s Cabin Pressure, and the pilot commissioned from Feelgood Fiction, who made Channel 5’s Suburban Shootout.

A BBC spokeswoman confirmed the pilot was being made early in the development stage, and would not be broadcast. She stressed the show was ‘one of a number of projects we have in development’.