W1A: First look at Hugh Bonneville and Jessica Hynes in series three of the BBC comedy

As RadioTimes.com revealed back in August, the BBC Two satire starring Hugh Bonneville and Jessica Hynes will be returning later this year for a six-part series – its longest run yet.

Poised in the reception of New Broadcasting House, the first image also shows Sarah Parish, Hugh Skinner, Jason Watkins, Monica Dolan, Nina Sosanya, Ophelia Lovibond, Rufus Jones, David Westhead and Jonathan Bailey reprising their roles in the comedy.

Filming will start next month and will follow nightmare PR Siobhan Sharpe (Hynes) as well as Ian Fletcher (Bonneville) and his team during and post Charter Renewal reacting to the BBC’s new mission statement of doing More Of Less.

Head of Output Anna Rampton (Parish) describes this as being about "Putting what we do best front and centre and about identifying better ways of doing less of it more". Well, quite.

The first series ran for four episodes whilst the second run was granted five episodes. Commissioned for six episodes, series three will be the longest yet of the comedy.

Series two finished in May 2015, and there had been rumours that the show was put on hold in 2016 because director general Tony Hall didn’t want the organisation to be unduly embarrassed during last year’s Charter renewal marathon.

However, this was denied by senior BBC sources at the time who cited the availability of the cast as being the major issue in the delay.

So that’s all good.