I can see it as an excellent vehicle for the likes of Rowan Atkinson, Stephen Fry, and Hugh Laurie.

The tagline came quite easily: "In space, no-one can hear you scream: 'Jeeves! You forgot my bloody cucumber sandwiches!'"

And I can readily hear Hugh Laurie uttering the immortal words: "I Say, That Chap's Got Two Heads!"

Here's how I think it might go:

The British upper classes like to go where no man has dared to go before. Up impossibly craggy mountains, down unfathomably deep holes in the ground, and along salt flats faster than a speeding bullet fired from a flintlock musket.

It's to be expected then that Lord Humphrey "Humpers" Doddering-Snoot and his chums would be the first to explore interstellar travel in their craft the SS Lord Fauntleroy, handbuilt by the family's carriagemaker and commanded by a semi-conscious neural cluster chappie affectionately called Smithers.

After a period of suspended animation, or as Humpers calls it, forty million winks, the intrepid explorers and their retinue arrive at the planet TR-Z01KP - or as Humpers calls it, Bertie - and after a much needed cup of tea and some top hole cucumber sandwiches, Humpers and his party sallies forth to say "What Ho!" very loudly to the indigenous species.

For, as anyone in the upper echelons will tell you, all foreigners understand English if you shout it loudly enough.

The story about to unfold is filled with spiffing adventures involving absolute bounders, jolly japes, wizard prangs, not to mention the odd spot of cricket, footer, rugger, snooker and of course, time out for tea and crumpets all round.

And wouldn't you know it, the bally idea's already undergoing revision (watch this space. Or some space that looks quite like it).