The final episode of Foyle’s War may have ended conclusively with the characters celebrating VE Day – but it seems the much-loved ITV1 drama is set for a post-war revival.

In an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, star of the show Honeysuckle Weeks reveals that Foyle’s War has given way to a new series entitled Foyle’s Peace.

Honeysuckle, who plays driver Samantha Stewart to Michael Kitchen’s Detective Chief Superintendent Foyle, said: ‘I have the contracts so they’ve got quite far with it and, although I haven’t seen scripts, the idea is that it’ll be set after the Second World War.

Perfect Foyle: Honeysuckle Weeks will reprise her role with Michael Kitchen

‘You can flog a show to death, but my bank manager will be pleased – though I’m not doing it for the money. I’m doing it because I’d hate not to be in it if it was going ahead.

I’m very attached to the show and the people in it.’

And viewers were very attached to the prim, proper and ferociously loyal Sam, with 7.3million tuning in for the final episode in April in the hope that the stolidly single driver might seal her on-off romance with Foyle’s son, Andrew, played by Julian Ovenden.

But Honeysuckle has her doubts that Sam’s love life will prove more fruitful in peacetime: ‘I asked the writers to keep Sam without a husband so she could do her job. In those days, if she’d been married, she’d have had to give it up.

‘What I think will happen is Sam will become a spinster and set up a boarding house. But they haven’t told me the plot, so I don’t know.’

Foyle’s War was created in 2001 by author Anthony Horowitz and commissioned by ITV1 to fill the void following the end of long-running detective series Inspector Morse.

Set in Hastings, it ran to 19 episodes and featured Foyle’s attempts to catch criminals taking advantage of wartime confusion.

Details of the new show have yet to be finalised, but Michael Kitchen is expected to reprise his role and Foyle’s peacetime exploits are likely to feature Sam more prominently.

Yet, according to Honeysuckle, in spite of the popularity of her character, her fee will remain the same.

She said: ‘My fee is not going up one bit. I’m a bit nice. I think I should be more of a prima donna.

‘But they probably won’t be able to afford Julian Ovenden any more because he has made a huge hit series in America , so they’ll have to pay him an awful lot of money or Sam will probably get dumped again.’

Not that Oxford graduate Honeysuckle, 29 – who is married to 44-year-old antiques dealer Lorne Stormonth-Darling – has been short of work since Foyle finished filming last year.

Her diary is full until July 2009 and the actress has been relishing roles far removed from buttoned-up Sam.

Along with two upcoming films – one a romantic comedy with John Hannah – and an appearance in The Bill as a Polish gangster’s moll, Honeysuckle will be touring from next month as alcoholic wife Marion in Alan Ayckbourn’s relationship comedy Absurd Person Singular.

‘Sam is very jolly hockeysticks but I wished she’d been a bit sexier.

'She has not one feline quality. She’s more like a dog. You want to throw her chocolate drops,’ she said.