Ronald William George "Ronnie" Barker, OBE (25 September 1929 – 3 October 2005) was an English actor, comedian, writer, critic, broadcaster and businessman. He was known for his roles in various British comedy television series, such as The Frost Report, Porridge, The Two Ronnies and Open All Hours.

He began his acting career in repertory theatre and decided he was best suited to performing comic roles. Barker gained his first acting successes at the Oxford Playhouse and later in various roles in the West End including Tom Stoppard's The Real Inspector Hound. During this period, he became a cast member on BBC radio and television comedy programmes such as The Navy Lark. Barker got his television break with the satirical sketch series The Frost Report in 1966 where he met future collaborator Ronnie Corbett. He joined David Frost's production company and was to star in a number of ITV shows including a short film during this period.

After rejoining the BBC Barker found fame with the sketch show The Two Ronnies (1971—1987) with Ronnie Corbett. After the series of pilots called Seven of One, he gained starring roles in the sitcoms Porridge, its sequel Going Straight and Open All Hours. Apart from being a performer, he was noted as a comedy writer both under his own name and the pseudonym Gerald Wiley, which Barker adopted to avoid pre-judgements of his talent. Barker won the BAFTA for Best Light Entertainment Performance four times, amongst other awards, and received an OBE in 1978.

Later television sitcoms such as The Magnificent Evans and Clarence were less successful and he decided to retire in 1987. After his retirement, he opened an antiques shop with his wife, Joy. After 1999, he appeared in a number of smaller, non-comic roles in films. Barker died of heart failure on 3 October 2005, aged 76.

Early life[link]

Plaque marking Barker's birthplace

Barker was born Ronald William George Barker on 25 September 1929 in Bedford, Bedfordshire, to Leonard (known as "Tim") and Edith (known as "Cis") Barker.^[1][2][3] Barker's elder sister Vera was born in 1926 and his younger sister Eileen was born in 1933.^[1][3] His father was a clerk for Shell-Mex, and this job saw the family move near to Cowley Road in Oxford when Barker was four.^[4][3] As a child, Barker enjoyed dressing up, particularly in his father's pierrot outfit.^[1][3] He developed a love of the theatre, often attending plays with his family. The first play he saw was Cottage to Let and he once skipped school in order to see Laurence Olivier in Henry V.^[5] He frequently stood outside stage-doors to collect autographs, his first being the actress Celia Johnson.^[5] Barker attended Donnington Junior School and then the City of Oxford High School for Boys. Barker's chemistry textbook at Oxford was previously owned by T.E. Lawrence.^[6]

He found his talent for humour at school and developed his musical ability by singing in the choir at St James's, his local church.^[5][7] He got in to the sixth form a year early after gaining the School Certificate^[8] but he felt what he was learning would be of no use to him in later life and so left as soon as he could.^[5] After leaving school he trained as an architect but gave it up after six months, feeling he was not skilled enough. Barker took his sister Vera's job as a bank clerk at the Westminster Bank (after she had left to become a nurse).^[2][9] Barker harboured dreams of becoming an actor, and took up amateur dramatics, although initially he just saw the pastime as a chance to meet girls.^[3] For 18 months while at the bank he worked as an actor and stage manager, making his first appearance in A Murder Has Been Arranged as the musical director of the play-within-a-play.^[9] Eventually he gave up his job to become a professional actor.^[4] His father did not support his acting ambition.^[7]

Career[link]

Theatrical career[link]

Barker failed to get into the Young Vic School,^[7] but joined the Manchester Repertory Company, which was based in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, often taking comic roles in their weekly shows. Initially he was employed as the assistant to the assistant stage manager, earning £2.10s.0d a week.^[9] He made his debut as a professional actor on 15 November 1948 as Lieutenant Spicer in a performance of J.M. Barrie's Quality Street.^[2] He went on to play the organist in When We Are Married and by his third role, the chauffeur Charles in Miranda, Barker realised he wanted to be a comic actor. He was described as "ha[ving] the talent to be a great straight actor",^[10] but noted: "I want to make people laugh. Never mind about Hamlet. Forget Richard the Second. Give me Charley's Aunt. My mission in life was now crystal clear."^[10] He appeared in stage adaptations of Treasure Island and Red Riding Hood before getting his first leading role in The Guinea Pig as a working class boy at a public school.^[10] When the production moved to Rhyl, Barker followed. The Manchester Repertory Company closed, as did the Rhyl company shortly after.^[7] Barker, aged 20, then spent some time as a porter at Wingfield Hospital; he became distressed through his contact with polio patients and so opted to take on the persona of "Charlie" so as not to be himself. He and a male nurse often entertained the patients with comedy routines. He found work at the Mime Theatre Company, performing mimed folk music and dance, which soon folded in Penzance.^[11] He made his way back to Oxford and then worked in Bramhall for the Famous Players.^[7] There he met actor Glenn Melvyn; the two became firm friends and Barker stated Melvyn taught him everything he "ever learned about comedy."^[12]

He joined the Oxford Playhouse in 1951 and worked there for three years, appearing in plays such as He Who Gets Slapped as the clown.^[7] Peter Hall worked with Barker at Oxford and gave him his break, casting him as the Chantyman and Joe Silva in his production of Mourning Becomes Electra at the Arts Theatre in London's West End in 1955.^[2][4] By the time he had made it to the West End, Barker had appeared in an estimated 350 plays.^[10] Barker remained a West End actor for several years, appearing in numerous plays between 1955 and 1968. These included, in 1955, two performances each night as he played a gypsy in Listen to the Wind at the Arts Theatre and then a peasant in Summertime later in the evening.^[13] Other roles included Mr Thwaites in Double Image in 1956 (with Olivier), Camino Real (directed by Hall) in 1957,^[13] French gangster Robertoles-Diams in Irma La Douce for two years from 1958,^[14] Lord Slingsby-Craddock in Mr Whatnot in 1964 and Birdboot in The Real Inspector Hound in 1968. He also appeared in several Royal Court Theatre productions, including A Midsummer Night's Dream as Quince.^[4]

Early media career[link]

Barker's theatrical success enabled him to move into radio work. Barker, who had previously been known by his birth name "Ronald", was now referred to as the shortened form "Ronnie", after a director changed it in the credits, although he did not tell Barker.^[4] His first radio appearance was in 1956, playing Lord Russett in Floggit's.^[4] He went on to play multiple characters, but primarily the lookout Able Seaman 'Fatso' Johnson and Lieutenant-Commander Stanton, in The Navy Lark, a navy based sitcom on the BBC Light Programme, which ran from 1959 to 1977, with Barker featuring in some 300 episodes.^[4][15] He also featured in the show's radio spin-off The TV Lark as Fatso Johnson, a camera operator, and as a trainee chef in Crowther's Crowd in 1963,^[4] and had roles on Variety Playhouse.^[16] Barker soon began working in film and television. His first acting job on television was in Melvyn's show I'm Not Bothered.^[17] He appeared in various roles in the comedy series The Seven Faces of Jim from 1962, alongside Jimmy Edwards and June Whitfield, as well as parts in Bold as Brass and Foreign Affairs (as the Russian ambassador Grischa Petrovitch).^[18] This was followed with dramatic parts in A Tale of Two Cities as Jerry Cruncher in 1965 as well as single episode roles in The Saint and The Avengers, in which he played Cheshire, a cat lover.^[18] He also appeared in films such as Doctor in Distress (1963), Father Came Too! (1963) and A Home of Your Own (1965).^[4][7]

In 1966, Barker got his break with the satirical sketch series The Frost Report, having been recommended for the show by producer James Gilbert.^[16] The show starred David Frost, John Cleese and Barker's future comedy partner Ronnie Corbett, whom he had met in 1963 when Corbett was the barman at the Buckstone Club near the Haymarket Theatre,^[14] and the two became friends. Corbett stated in his autobiography that the two had gravitated towards each other because of their similar backgrounds; neither had attended university, while many of the other Frost Report cast and writers had.^[19] Each episode of the show, which was performed and broadcast live, was focused on a single topic and principally revolved around a continuous monologue from Frost, with sketches from Barker, Corbett and Cleese as the show went on.^[20] Barker starred alongside Cleese and Corbett in The Frost Report's best known sketch, which satirised the British class system, with Barker representing the middle class.^[19]

After the first series, the special Frost Over England was produced, winning the Golden Rose at the Montreux Television Festival.^[21] With a second series of the show announced, Frost, recognising their potential, signed both Barker and Corbett up to his production company David Paradine Productions.^[22] As part of the deal Barker was given his own show in 1968, The Ronnie Barker Playhouse, which comprised six separate, thirty minute plays. Barker starred in each piece as a different character.^[23] After two series of The Frost Report on the BBC, totalling 26 half-hour episodes, Frost moved to ITV after helping to set up London Weekend Television. There, Frost hosted Frost on Sunday, with Barker and Corbett following and again performing sketches on the programme.^[24] Barker began writing sketches for the programme under the pseudonym Gerald Wiley.^[2] Barker and Corbett had a greater role on the show than on The Frost Report and Corbett felt "more aware of what [they] were doing."^[25]

Barker began using the pseudonym Gerald Wiley when writing sketches because he wished the pieces to be accepted on merit and not just because he, as a star of the programme, had written them; he continued this tradition with the material he wrote later in his career.^[4] Barker brought his sketches in, claiming they had come from Wiley through Barker's agent Peter Eade, and they were very well received. In order to maintain the deception, Barker had criticised material he himself had submitted under the pseudonym; when a Wiley-credited sketch about a ventriloquist had been poorly received by the audience Barker told Corbett "Well, Gerald Wiley let us down there", and on another occasion, when looking at a script, "I don't understand this line. What's he getting at?"^[26] One of the first sketches he wrote was called "Doctor's Waiting Room", with the main part written for Corbett. Barker encouraged Corbett to buy the rights to the sketch and, further maintaining the myth, told him to reject Wiley's 'request' for £3,000 as too expensive, before giving Corbett the sketch for free.^[26] Speculation began about Wiley's identity, with Tom Stoppard, Frank Muir, Alan Bennett and Noël Coward all rumoured. After the second series of Frost on Sunday, the cast and crew were invited to a Chinese restaurant, while Wiley said that he would reveal himself. Barker, who had told Corbett earlier in the day, stood up and announced he was Wiley, although initially nobody believed him.^[26]

In 1969 Barker was able to produce the film Futtocks End which featured no dialogue and only "grumble[s] and grunt[s]"; Barker played General Futtock in the film and also wrote it.^[2][4] The Ronnie Barker Playhouse had been designed to find a successful idea for a sitcom, and the episode "Ah, There You Are" by Alun Owen, which introduced the bumbling aristocratic character Lord Rustless, was chosen.^[4][23] The character returned for the 1969-1970 series Hark at Barker as the main character; Barker wrote for the show under the name Jonathan Cobbald.^[4] As Wiley he wrote the 1971 series Six Dates with Barker.^[4] Despite Barker's success on ITV, LWT's programme controller Stella Richman opted to fire Frost's company Paradine and as Barker was contracted to the company rather than the network, he lost his job, as did Corbett.^[27]

[edit] Move to the BBC and The Two Ronnies

Soon after, Barker, Corbett and Josephine Tewson performed a sketch about Henry VIII at the 1971 BAFTAs, with Barker playing Henry. The two also had to keep the audience entertained for eight or so minutes as the show was stopped because of technical difficulties. Their performance at the award show impressed the BBC's Head of Light Entertainment Bill Cotton and Controller of BBC One Paul Fox, who were sitting in the audience. Not knowing they were both essentially unemployed, although still contracted to Paradine, Cotton signed the duo up for their own show together, and a series each on their own; he later joked he "must have offered them too much money."^[4][28] Barker and Corbett wished to avoid being remembered primarily as a duo, and felt they could not work in the same way as a conventional double act like Morecambe and Wise, and so each maintained their solo careers as well.^[29] They each were given a one-off variety special; Barker's, called The Ronnie Barker Yearbook, featured a sketch for each month of the year, although because of time constraints the first two had to be cut.^[30] Barker also reprised his character Lord Rustless in the sitcom His Lordship Entertains in 1972.^[4] Barker wrote all seven episodes, again with the pseudonym Jonathan Cobbald.^[31]

Their show together was The Two Ronnies, a sketch show which aired for twelve series and eight specials between 1971 and 1987, to immediate success.^[15] The show, as described by Anthony Hayward of The Independent, was "a cocktail of comedy sketches, playlets, songs and parodies, a long-winded Corbett monologue and a singing star, sandwiched between the opening and closing news summaries."^[4] The usual format consisted of many sketches between the two, an ongoing filmed serial, a solo character sketch from Barker, Corbett's monologue, a musical number, a special guest, bookended by joke news items, delivered from a desk by the two in the style of newsreaders, before ending with the catchphrase "It's good night from me - and it's good night from him."^[2] This was a set format which was used for almost the entirety of the show's run.^[32] The end catchphrase and newsreader characters were devised because Barker found it difficult to appear as himself: Corbett explained that Barker "was a very private man, a quiet man...He found it almost impossible to talk directly, as himself, to an audience."^[33][34] Each also had their own solo segments to help ensure they were not totally associated as a double act.^[35] Filming took place over four months of each year.^[36] After outdoor and serial sketches were filmed on location, the studio material was filmed on Sunday evenings at BBC Television Centre in front a live audience; the musical finale was filmed the day before without the audience.^[37]