It’s been 15 years since we waved goodbye to Frasier (Picture: Rex Features/Shutterstock)

It’s been 15 years since Frasier Crane waved goodbye to Seattle, and 35 since we first met him stumbling into the local Boston haunt that would change his life in Cheers.

Now here we are: a Frasier revival is officially in the works because the 34 million viewers who tuned in to the finale in 2004 weren’t quite ready say goodbye.

It’s not that surprising, there’s barely a reboot not on the offering as Hollywood struggles to pitch new ideas, but few rumblings of a renaissance have conjured quite as much excitement as the prospect of being reunited with the excruciatingly snooty, but undeniably lovable radio psychiatrist.

Speaking exclusively to Metro.co.uk, Kelsey Grammer confirmed stories are being pitched, the writing rooms have been booked, but ‘cheques haven’t been written,’ he grinned, which is fair: at Frasier’s peak he was paid an estimated $1.6million (£1.2million) per episode, making him the highest paid TV actor of all time.

But the sitcom was far from a one man show, his father Martin (played by John Mahoney), erratic brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce), sister-in-law Daphne Moon (Jane Leeves), and the rebellious Roz Doyle (Peri Gilpin) made up the single most celebrated ensemble cast of all time (before Game of Thrones) with 37 Emmy wins and a further 71 nominations.

‘I’d want everybody back,’ Kelsey stressed, although following the death of John in 2018 there will always be something missing.

‘We would need to deal with that within the storytelling, but I’d want everybody back, if they want to come back.’ Which ‘they seem to’, thankfully.

The entire Frasier cast seem to be up for a reboot (Picture: Bei/REX/Shutterstock)

After almost two decades, the possibilities behind Frasier’s return are almost limitless. His second carnation, after being promoted to what was arguably a supporting – albeit favourite – character in Cheers to his own spin-off, introduced us to an entirely new Frasier: bars which didn’t require a guest list were beneath him; he was newly divorced, and suddenly he was a single parent reluctantly caring for his own father.

While Kelsey didn’t necessarily pine for the sitcom’s return quite in the same way as its fanbase, he ‘always thought of Frasier carrying on in some world’.

‘Whether he’s got six children and a wife in the islands somewhere, he needs to come back to probably resolve things with his son Frederick, which mirrors the show in the first place,’ explained Kelsey.

Frasier will address the death of John Mahoney (Picture: Kobal/REX/Shutterstock)

Perhaps he’ll finally be lucky in love. Then again, where would the fun be in that?

‘We did talk about it from year to year,’ smiled the 64-year-old. ‘All along we hoped Frasier would find someone equally funny and be in love with him, but it never really worked out. We planned the last relationship with Charlotte, who he left and went to Chicago to be with, but Frasier was always funny when he was out of love and falling in love. It was just a interesting dynamic which propelled us away from things working out.’

And to think, Kelsey almost missed out on playing the long-suffering therapist. Showrunners initially offered Frasier to Third Rock From The Sun and The Crown star John Lithgow, who turned the part down because it was ‘beneath him’. He later admitted Kesley turned the character ‘into an incredible phenomenon’.

‘I was the better choice,’ Kelsey chuckled, in his signature belly laugh. But he’s not wrong, and by his account it clearly seemed obvious to producers at the time.

‘My audition for Frasier was good,’ he began. ‘I read what we call sides, which was scenes for a script. I went to the Western building, which is actually now one of the Trump Towers, and read for Gretchen Rennell, and she said, “you have something.” And then she said, “you can’t show this to anyone; it’s top secret.”

‘I thought that was weird, some sort of corporate spying thing. Then one week later they flew me out to California to audition for it.’ And the rest was history.

Kelsey Grammar stars as Gore Bellows in Proven Innocent (Picture: Fox)

However, before there’s time to get excited for any Frasier reboot, there’s Proven Innocent, which follows Madeline Scott (Rachelle Lefevre), a lawyer specialising in wrongful convictions, driven by her decade in prison for a crime she didn’t commit, thanks to the monstrous state attorney Gore Bellows, played by Kelsey. Yet the actor’s surprisingly defensive about his villain.

‘They call him a monster, a corrupt monster, but I think that’s just another character’s point of view,’ he insisted.

‘You can make your decisions as the series develops. There’s some really interesting plot twists that take place. And it’s fun, especially for the last two or three episodes. I can’t say more than that.’

You can decide for yourself when Proven Innocent comes to Universal TV at 9pm on 18 March.

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