Can You Keep a Secret? — everything we know

Can You Keep a Secret cast Neha Fendon (Mandip Gill), William Fendon (Mark Heap), Debbie Fendon (Dawn French), Harry Fendon (Craig Roberts)

(Image credit: BBC)

Can You Keep a Secret? is a new BBC One comedy starring The Vicar of Dibley's Dawn French.

To make it even more exciting, the series set in the West Country also stars Friday Night Dinner's Mark Heap. Dawn plays widow Debbie Fendon, with Mark as her late husband William. But the big twist is Mark isn't actually dead, just hiding in the loft from the insurance people!

Dawn says: "At last... a sitcom where I can keep my top on… mostly."

Here's everything we know about Can You Keep a Secret?...

Can You Keep a Secret? Release date

Friday Night Dinner cast — Mark Heap in Friday Night Dinner as Jim (Image credit: Channel 4)

Can You Keep a Secret? Is now filming so we’d expect a late 2025 release date on BBC One, but this is still to be confirmed. It has six parts.

Plot

Debbie (Dawn French) is a granny, lawn bowler and general tinpot dictator who’s married to hermit-like William. William promptly dies, however, it later turns out he’s been wrongly declared dead. Rather than own up the couple hatch a scheme where William will hide in the loft until the insurance pays out and then they can use the cash to fund their retirement. What could go wrong? Well quite a lot obviously!

The BBC teases: "This all proves a bit much for their easily frazzled son Harry (Craig Roberts – Submarine, The Fundamentals of Caring) who — despite his emotional shortcomings — has managed to acquire a family of his own and a potentially life-changing insurance payout from his father's 'death'.

"What's especially tricky for Harry is that his pathologically pragmatic wife Neha (Doctor Who’s Mandip Gil) is a local police officer and, if she finds out about her in-laws’ fraudulent ways, the Fendons might have an issue. Clearly Harry — reunited with a dad he’s just buried and the reality that his parents have turned into a pensioner version of Bonnie and Clyde — suddenly has a lot more to juggle. Sandwiched between two generations of toddlers, he finds himself navigating a very common stage of life — only this time, it's criminal."