A beloved BBC comedy is returning to screens under a new name, Twenty Twenty Six, 14 years after its debut. The mockumentary-style series, created by John Morton, originally aired as Twenty Twelve on BBC Four in 2011 before moving to BBC Two. Hugh Bonneville will reprise his role as Ian Fletcher, joined by Hugh Skinner as Will Humphries, with a cast that also includes EastEnders actor Nicole Sadie Sawyerr, Sex Education’s Joe Heweston, Blitz’s Erin Kellyman and Everything I Know About Love’s Marli Siu. David Tennant will return to narrate the programme.
Set against a fictional 2026 World Cup hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, the new show is billed as the biggest ever edition of the tournament, featuring 48 nations and venues spread thousands of miles across North America. In BBC materials, Fletcher heads a new Twenty Twenty Six Oversight Team in Miami as its Director of Integrity, with Skinner’s Will Humphries rejoining the action. The return of Bonneville’s Ian Fletcher anchors a blend of familiar and fresh faces, including Nicole Sadie Sawyerr, Joe Heweston, Erin Kellyman and Marli Siu. The project is produced by Expectation and will air on BBC One and BBC iPlayer next year. The production has the backing of the original creator, John Morton, who says he’s excited to continue Ian’s misadventures and explore new dynamics in a high-stakes sporting setting. David Tennant remains part of the project as narrator, lending a deadpan through-line to the mockumentary’s satirical treatment of event management.
The revival emerges more than a decade after Twenty Twelve’s run, which wrapped up in 2012 after 12 episodes across two series. The ensemble helped the show win Best TV Sitcom at the 2011 British Comedy Awards, and its cast later earned accolades including Olivia Colman’s 2013 BAFTA for Best Female Performance in a Comedy Programme, along with RTS and Broadcasting Press Guild awards for the program as a whole. The new incarnation signals the BBC’s continued appetite for workplace satire that riffs on real-world mega-events and the logistical chaos that surrounds them.
Morton says he’s thrilled to bring Ian back, this time to Miami, and to follow the character’s misadventures into a new, high-pressure setting. “I’m thrilled and hugely grateful to the BBC for giving me the chance to follow Ian again, this time all the way to Miami, and I literally can’t wait to see what happens,” Morton said in a production statement. Nerys Evans, Expectations Creative Director, Scripted, said she has long admired John’s writing and is excited by the new challenges the show will present.
The project reunites an audience with Bonneville’s Ian Fletcher while introducing a new generation of performers who have become known for work in contemporary British television. The series continues the BBC’s trend of revisiting beloved formats through modern reinterpretations, with Twenty Twenty Six aiming to mirror the original’s blend of workplace satire and event-management farce, now set against a North American-hosted World Cup.