'Father Ted' creator Graham Linehan is battling testicular cancer.
Graham Linehan
The Irtish comedy writer - who created the beloved sitcom about a trio of priests with Arthur Mathews - logged on to Twitter to tell his fans that he had been diagnosed with the illness and that is why he had to pull out of his Australian tour.,
Linehan, 50, has undergone a successful operation to remove the cancerous testicle and is now set to undergo a course of chemotherapy to kill off the cancer.
Laughing in the face of adversity, he tweeted: "I got a bit of bad news recently. A little touch of the old cancer. Luckily, ball cancer is one of the best ones to have (sorry, ladies!) and they got rid of it all pretty quickly, along with a ball. Bye, ball! I'll never forget the good times!
"Next up is a course of chemo to make sure it doesn't come back. Not looking forward to that, obviously, but it's better than dying.
"Apologies to everyone who bought tickets to my Australian event. I'm hoping to make it back next year ... So that's the story. I'm hoping I'll just continue to be the happy-go-lucky, beloved twitter personality you all know, but if there are moments of quiet from me, don't worry, I'm just dealing with it. [sic]"
Whilst he is fighting cancer, Linehan plans to focus on completing his 'Father Ted' musical, entitled 'Pope Ted', and hopes his treatment won't slow up the creative process.
He tweeted: "Pope Ted' is coming along nicely. It's really making us laugh. I'm not sure whether I'll have to stop working on it or what, but the script (sorry, 'book') is so close to being done that I can walk away from it for a while and we're still in good shape."
Linehan was inundated with messages from fans wishing him a speedy recovery, and he coped with the avalanche of support with his usual acerbic wit.
He tweeted: "Ugh, God, people are so nice. You forget sometimes. Thanks, everyone."
Linehan's other TV credits include creating Channel 4 sitcom 'The IT Crowd' and working on episodes of 'Big Train', 'Black Books' and 'Count Arthur Strong'.