Los Angeles - (Rioters): Former Cheers star Kirstie Alley has been chosen by Faux TV network to play the star role in a US remake of the Vicar of Dibley sitcom.
She will portray Dawn French's small-town preacher Geraldine Granger as an outreach worker from the Reverend Pat Robertson's Protein-Defying Ageing Pancake Emporium in a pilot for a new series.
The show is based around an evangelical creationist woman pastor who becomes the spiritual mentor to America's first ever woman President.
The pilot edition sees the pastor confront her first major parish dilemma when she discovers Hugh Rodham is one of her congregation.
His ambition to be appointed as head of the CIA runs into trouble after he is caught red handed siphoning off parish funds to pay for a series of liposuction operations.
The pastor makes him put the money back in exchange for a bit of DIY surgery on the chapel altar with an adapted vacuum cleaner, scalpel, douche-bag and sticking plaster.
Fortunately no scenes of blood or Gore will be allowed because it's a family show.
Casting of the show's other roles is under way and shooting is expected to start next month.
