From bank clerk to TV actor

Press, 15 August 1978, Page 12

From bank clerk to TV actor

By

RICHARD LAST

Ronnie Barker is every British television viewer’s favourite fat man. In the 8.8. C. series, “Porridge,” he has achieved the improbable: wringing genuine comedy, allied to carefully understated compassion, from the unlikeliest of comic venues — prison.

Long before “Fletcher,” as his “Porridge” character was known to fellow inmates, hit the weekly ratings Barker was a confirmed star of television, chiefly through his association with the diminutive Ronnie Corbett in the long running series, “The Two Ronnies.” Yet he came to national success fairly late — in his late 30s (he is now 48); and after a 20-year apprenticeship spent mostly in the "straight” theatre.

Barker was educated in Oxford and lived there until well into his 20s. Originally he intended to be an architect and trained in that profession for some, four months. After that he became a bank clerk. He got his first taste of the boards with the bank’s amateur dramatic society. At 19 Barker realised that his future lay in the theatre. He graduated from

iocal repertory to London’s West End, and at this point his sights were still very much on the dramatic theatre; even today he confesses to a half-suppressed yearning to play “heavy” roles.

He was in weighty dramas such as “Mourning Becomes Electra” and was "discovered” by Peter Hall (now Sir Peter Hall, director of the National Theatre), who cast him in "Camino Real.”

But it was inevitable that Barker’s comic talents would come to the fore. On radio he played a querulous sailor in the long-running comedy series “The Navy Lark.” On stage he got the starring part in Tom Stoppard’s mock thriller "The Real Inspector Hound.” And on television he finally, in the late 19605, came to the notice of a wider audience in “The Frost Report.”

Since then his television career has been unstoppable. In 1968 he starred in his own weekly series, “The Ronnie Barker Playhouse,” in which he played a different role in each episode of a series of half-hour comedies. Repeating the same pro-

cess in 1973, he introduced the character of Fletcher and launched the "Porridge” series which was to run for almost four years until it was taken off in March of last year.

This was not because people were tired of it, but because 8.8. C. comedy chiefs have always, wisely, been wary of letting any highly successful format become stale.

Barker’s special gifts are his facial mobility, his versatility (he frequently undertakes a string of characters in the course of one television show) and his extreme quickness — of body as well as mind.

Despite his ample girth, he moves nimbly and with great precision. In “The Two Ronnies,” a 50-minute show combining sketches, monologues and elaborately produced musical numbers, he is frequently called on to dance.

His quickfire delivery of semi-nonsenscial lines is legendary, often promoting a comic effect well beyond their content: “The quickness of the gag deceives the ear” as one commentator put it. Barker has also made a considerable reputation as a tvriter. Much of the material in “The Two Ronnies” is his own, and he has also scripted radio serials and some short, silent movies. He often uses pseudonyms — “Gerald Wiley” is .one of them. Barker is known as the complete professional, a relentless strive for perfection. His timing is widely acknowledged to be, even in a world where timing is of the essence, impeccable. Sydney Lotterby, producer of “Porridge,” says of him: “He has an enormous talent. He always understands what is funny, and he can always perform it. His instinct for comedy, and his sense of timing, are something 1 take for granted; sometimes he makes feel guilty because he leaves me so little to do.”

In private life Barker is a devoted family man. He lives in Pinner (the epitome of London suburbia) with his wife Joy and their three children. He is an avid collector of Victoriana and has published several books based on his collection of old picture books and postcards.

“The Two Ronnies” was born when Bill Cotton, former head of 8.8. C. Television light entertainment, suggested to one of his producers that Barker and Corbet would make a marvellous team.

Earlier this year they appeared on stage together for the first time in a summer spectacular at the London Palladium — yet another turn in Barker’s constantly developing career.