Obituary: Ronnie Barker

Ronnie Barker, comedian, actor, scriptwriter. Died aged 76.

We all knew Ronnie Barker, we thought. In 1979 the comedian arrived unannounced with his family at Auckland Airport, heading for a Taupo holiday. The crowd in the terminal broke into spontaneous applause.

They recognised a man who made comedy look effortlessly funny. They were also unknowingly greeting a private man, someone who in his off-stage life prompted such appellations as "indecently normal" or a man of "irredeemable niceness".

The confidence displayed in acting roles was at odds with his rare television interviews. An unexpectedly hesitant, thin voice discussing subjects with great politeness, wary of sounding critical.

The real Ronnie Barker was a man of ability and professionalism, with years of experience in theatre and radio shows, including nine years on The Navy Lark.

He had a rare ability to portray a wide variety of characters, from villains such as Fletcher in Porridge to a vicar giving a sermon in Cockney rhyming slang or parodying the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

For each character the required accuracy - appearance, dialect, mannerisms and language - was always intact. His skill at verbal gymnastics was astonishing. And he loved the double entendre.

"The wonderful thing about a joke with a double meaning," he once said, "is that it can only mean one thing."

If it all sounded spontaneous, it wasn't. He could never give a speech without notes.

Whatever his character portrayals, the Barker bulk was usually easily recognisable. Ronnie Corbett once described Barker as being built not like a Greek god but like a Greek restaurant. His wife, Joy, (they met during a small theatre production) said she did not worry about his weight.

"He was a big man when I first met him, with all the signs that he would grow bigger," she said, although high blood pressure and heart problems helped to cause his retirement in 1986.

When Barker was filming Porridge he kept his weight about 15 stone (95kg) so he didn't appear different sizes in following episodes.

Ronnie Barker remains famous for his comedy roles in The Two Ronnies, Porridge and Open All Hours, the latter about a large, grasping grocer with a stutter and his undervalued assistant Granville (David Jason).

The Two Ronnies evolved from shows such as the 1960s Frost Report, whose brilliant cast included David Frost, Barker, Corbett and the gangling John Cleese.

The latter three were used in memorable skits employing their physical differences on such subjects as social status: "I am middle-class. I look up to him, but I look down on him."

Barker recalled sitting in a train once opposite a family, one of whom suddenly pointed at him and said : "Look, there's the man in the middle."

They then "talked about me as though I was a picture on the wall".

At the end of a Frost Report series, scriptwriter "Gerald Wiley" invited the Frost team to a "thank you" meal at a Chinese restaurant, where Barker sat with others speculating who the mystery author might be. At the end of the evening Barker suddenly said it was him - the others didn't believe him.

Frost Report quips demonstrate the clear link to The Two Ronnies: "Someone broke into the Kremlin last night and stole next year's election results."

Or "Do you want to lose 10 pounds of unsightly fat? Cut your head off."

Barker wrote many scripts for shows (Porridge was an exception), often agonising over them, ensuring just the right comedic effect.

He once confessed to hiding behind his disguises, "using them to project a lot of personalities that were not remotely me".

Joy added: "He always says he has no personality of his own - although I don't agree - and that he likes to slip into a role and use it as a blank sheet on which to write."

Barker thought himself "a family man who works irregular hours". Joy described him as "basically very shy".

The family (with offspring Adam, Larry and Charlotte) gave up seaside holidays because people kept coming up to Barker and asking him to say something funny and make them laugh.

Ronnie Barker had other comedies that never scaled the heights. Some features such as the stutter in Open All Hours or his myopic Clarence flop brought criticism.

But surely the shopkeeper's stutter helped to soften the mean, abrasive character of Arkwright. And it left us with such enduring images as the storekeeper levelling a shotgun from a first-floor window at fleeing burglars and demanding: "Stop, or I fa ... fa ... fa ... fire".

Barker's own view: "To get a job where the only thing you have to do in your career is make people laugh ... well, it's the best job in the world."

He is survived by Joy and their children.

The youngest son, Adam, is wanted by police after being arrested for downloading child pornography on the internet. He disappeared 16 months ago, and it is not known if he will return for his father's funeral, when he could be arrested.

Ronnie Barker never spoke publicly about the matter but was said to be devastated.