“They remade it and messed it up,” moaned Philip Glenister in June, pouring scorn on the US remake of Life on Mars. Glenister, who played the deeply un-PC detective Gene Hunt in the original series, said he was “furious” about botched American remakes of British shows.

He’s not alone. Fans of Channel 4's Peep Show were up in arms this week at the news that American TV network Starz was developing a remake of the Bafta-winning sitcom, which ran from 2003-2015. The boundary-pushing comedy starred Robert Webb and David Mitchell as two hopelessly mismatched flatmates, and was filmed through as if through the eyes of the protagonists, while the audience heard their unfiltered thoughts as a running voice-over.