Count Arthur Strong comes to the telly But nothing has been taken for granted. An earlier TV pilot, which posited Arthur as the host of a quiz-show, was laboured over, delivered and discarded. The conceit now is that much of the action takes place in a suburban café frequented by the Count and filled with all-new supporting characters. In addition there's a big overarching storyline: that he has been tracked down by Rory Kinnear's Michael, who's seeking to write the memoirs of his dad, the far more successful half of a double-act we're newly told Arthur was once in. Watching the final episode in the series being recorded at Pinewood Studios, it's clear that the pair are putting heart and soul into it in more ways than one. Linehan, affable, garrulous and intense, dashes about the set, animatedly conferring with the cast whenever he wants the delivery of a line fine-tuned. But it's the show's warmth and pathos that comes across most strongly - Arthur now exists in a real world where people look out for each other, and when he's left on his own you appreciate the solitude of his situation. "It was important to make something that had a heart - we used that word a lot," Delaney explains later in the Soho offices of Freemantle Media, who are producing the show. We wanted something that had a community feel. A lot of comedy these days can be quite vindictive - about people being nasty to each other. We didn't want that at all. A throwback to the bygone age of variety, and indirectly inspired by Leeds locals and family-members who made an impression when Delaney was young, the Count - with his bow-tie, trilby and stiff, stooped gait - is the archetypal fish-out-of-water. Delaney relished the chance to collide him with modern-day Britain: "We have an episode with some hoodie kids and there's a bit of a riot," he reveals. Setting it today is great - we can pay as much heed to that as we want or leave it alone. Linehan got involved quite simply by sending an email of appreciation early on in the radio series. "I replied saying, "Are you the Graham Linehan I think you are?" " Things went from there. In person, Delaney is far more precise of speech than his creation. He holds back rather than holds forth. He's dressed in non-showbiz grey-coloured jersey and jeans. People sometimes expect him to slip into Count Arthur mode like a performing seal - and although he has an incredible capacity to ad-lib when in costume, he's clear about the demarcation ("I've got a healthy take on it - I can switch it on and off"); it's only in occasional turns of phrase that Arthur slips in and out of the room. The leap to TV could well put Arthur in the same household-name league and comedy pantheon as Basil Fawlty, say, or Victor Meldrew. But some fans will take a lot of persuading: "Some are so loyal they don't think he should exist outside the sphere of radio." And there are quite a few people who appear not to be able to stand him in any form. Delaney recounts how every radio series resulted in a debate on Radio 4"s right-to-reply programme Feedback: "We were on twice in one series," he says, almost with pride. People phoned up to complain about it and then other people phoned up to defend it. With Arthur's memoirs in the pipeline - and the high possibility of further TV series - there won't be a radio outing for a while but Delaney isn't bothered by brickbats anyway: "It's people's prerogative not to like things," he says flatly. I never expected everyone to like Arthur. The only thing that bothered me was the inference that it had been thrown together. So much work goes into it. And might one side-effect of being beamed into people's front-rooms be that he ends up getting recognised more? He hopes not. The drummer from the Wurzels spotted me in Ikea in Bristol once. He frowns - and it's as if I can see Arthur squinting at me through Delaney's specs. Eh, who wants that? Count Arthur Strong's sitcom begins on BBC 2 on July 8