RICHARD Dawkins is the star of a new sitcom where his wife secretly takes in God as a lodger.

Lord Above! revolves around committed rationalist Dawkins’s struggle to explain the miraculous and often infuriating events occurring in his house.

ITV controller Tom Booker said: “In the first episode, God manifests in a burning bush in the front garden and asks Mrs Dawkins in a booming voice if she needs anything from Asda.

“Richard comes out and she’s forced to invent an unlikely explanation involving a pack of confused Welsh nationalists and a political canvasser with a malfunctioning tannoy.

“The excuses get even more outlandish in later episodes, when Dawkins runs himself a bath of Merlot during God’s secret party, forcing Mrs Dawkins to claim that the taps are hooked up to the local Oddbins.

“The following week she has to pretend that next door’s gay son has had a statue of himself made of salt put in the back garden.”

Dawkins, who still has an Equity card from his stint as Doctor Who in the 70s, hopes the public will take to his exasperated catchphrase, “For God’s sake!”

The first series ends on a cliffhanger as Mrs Dawkins discovers that, despite being long past the menopause, she’s miraculously fallen pregnant. The storyline will be resolved in a Christmas special.