Here’s an article from The Stage, published on Thursday 4th September 1980.
That sitcom aired as The Incredible Mr Tanner, in February and March of 1981. But it wasn’t the first time that Cooke and Mortimer had written these characters. It’s actually a reworking of their 1971 sitcom Kindly Leave The Kerb, with the main roles taken then by Peter Butterworth and Peter Jones.
And even then, that wasn’t their first dalliance with Tanner.
Three years earlier, they wrote an installment of The Ronnie Barker Playhouse called The Incredible Mister Tanner, with Barker in the title role alongside Richard O’Sullivan.