Ben Elton’s sitcom Upstart Crow, which imagines the beleaguered personal and professional lives of a floridly loquacious William Shakespeare, is to be adapted for the stage. It will provide David Mitchell, who has played the lead role in three series for the BBC, with his West End theatre debut. Gemma Whelan will resume her role as Kate, the shrewd daughter of Shakespeare’s landlord, in the new play.

“I’m delighted to have the opportunity to bring history’s most famous balding dramatist to the West End,” said Mitchell. “Theatregoers can look forward to a comedy steeped in authentic Shakespearean ambience in every way apart from the smell.”

Elton, who wrote the original series with Mitchell in mind, has set the play in 1605, with Shakespeare desperately searching for a new plot, distracted by family troubles and no doubt coming up with a tortured metaphor or two. The comedy promises confusion caused by a pair of identical twins and a dancing bear named Mrs Whiskers that has escaped from the Globe.

Several plays have featured the great Stratford dramatist as a character, most notably Edward Bond’s Bingo and the 2014 stage adaptation of the Oscar-winning film Shakespeare in Love. Shakespeare also had a minor role in Emilia, Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s rousing portrait of Emilia Bassano, the supposed dark lady of his sonnets, which was a West End hit.

Directed by Sean Foley, The Upstart Crow opens at the Gielgud theatre, London, on 7 February, and will run for 11 weeks.