You don’t often get surprises in TV comedy. But it was a genuinely brilliant surprise when Peter Gabriel pitched up on a segway in the final episode of Brian Pern: The Life Of Rock on BBC4 earlier this year. All the critics had been suggesting during the series that Gabriel might be livid if he thought that Simon Day’s spoof prog rocker was based on him. In fact he clearly wasn’t livid, he loved it.

And now Brian Pern returns, with a slightly different title and on BBC2. And this time the surprises are front-loaded. In the first episode we find Pern looking to re-ignite his money stream with a jukebox musical entitled Stowe Boys, inspired by his public school childhood. And who is going to play pouting pop prodigy Pern? None other than a bearded Martin Freeman, direct from his acclaimed performance in BBC4's Chas & Dave biopic.

And Freeman isn’t the only treat. Jack Whitehall is also roped into the fictional stage cast by director Kathy Burke to play dashing young keyboard maestro Tony Pebble (pronounced “Pebblé” and played by Nigel Havers in real-ish offstage comedy life). Freeman and Whitehall don suitably seventies wigs and act suitably thespy while Pern frets about his future on the sidelines and finds himself drawn into the Operation Bad Apples investigation – something definitely not inspired by any actual prog rockers, living or dead.

We see a bit more of Pern at home in this episode too. When not teaching gorillas how to skype he indulges in his passion for world music and we get to meet his live-in cleaner and protege Pepita Sanchez, Mexico’s answer to Kate Bush. Who knows, maybe this series will pull off another big shock and feature the real Kate Bush on rollerblades in the final episode. Although maybe that really would be asking too much.

Brian Pern: A Life In Rock, Episode 1, is on iPlayer here.