STEPHEN FRY - FRY AND EVANS CONFIRMED FOR JONATHAN ROSS' TV RETURN

FRY AND EVANS CONFIRMED FOR JONATHAN ROSS' TV RETURN

Actor Stephen Fry and comic Lee Evans will be interviewed by Jonathan Ross when his chatshow returns to BBC1 later this month.

The presenter was suspended from the corporation for three months over his involvement in the row concerning obscene voicemails left for Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs.

While Russell Brand resigned over the incident - in which he and Ross joked about Brand having slept with Sachs' granddaughter - Ross received a suspension and will return to BBC1 on January 23rd.

One further guest is to be added to the Friday night with Jonathan Ross lineup while Scottish indie band Franz Ferdinand have been confirmed as the show's musical guests.

Ross will resume his Radio 2 show on the following day and host a new edition of Film 2009 on January 26th.

As well as Brand, two senior Radio 2 executives resigned over the messages left for Sachs and broadcast last year.

Thousands of complaints were received as a result of the incident, which the BBC Trust, the broadcaster's governing body, declared "grossly offensive".

Richard Tait, the Trust's editorial standards spokesman, said the broadcast of the calls to Sachs represented a "catalogue of editorial management failures".