BRITAIN'S favourite brickies will be back on the nation's television sets this Christmas - for their last overseas capers.

The hapless, yet lovable, lads of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet are being reunited for the final time in a Far Eastern adventure that forms the basis of two festive episodes.

First screened in 1983, the show made huge stars of Geordie actors Jimmy Nail, Kevin Whateley and Tim Healy.

Their characters - Oz, Neville and Dennis - were joined by Barry, Bomber and Moxey for two vintage series that took them from the job-starved North-East to Germany and Spain.

The series was revived last year and proved as popular as ever with fans, taking the lads from Russia to Cuba.

The show lost a stalwart earlier this year, however, with the death of Pat Roach, who played Bomber.

But BBC chiefs delighted devotees last night by revealing plans for a further two episodes over the Christmas period.

The boys' latest job for the Overseas Estates Department takes them to the lush, Buddhist paradise of Laos.

But while Moxey falls in love with an Australian Embassy worker, the rest of the gang are none too happy with the noodles or the weather.

Eventually, realising there is more to life than the gang, they make plans for one final fling in Thailand once the job is done.

Inevitably, things go wrong as Brummie Barry is captured in the jungle.

As the lads set out to rescue Barry, his estranged wife Tatiana appears to announce she is pregnant with his child.

Oz devises a plan, but as the group is driven deep into the jungle they realise they are being set up - leaving only Tatiana or spy Tarquin, who they encountered in Cuba, to save them.

The BBC said last night that the shows would be aired over the festive holidays, although no dates had yet been confirmed.

A spokeswoman said: "The Christmas schedules will be confirmed on Tuesday, at this stage we can only say these episodes will be on at some point during the holidays."

Published: 25/11/2004