RONNIE BARKER was not a comedian, he was an actor with a talent for comedy. He made his name as one half of The Two Ronnies, the roly-poly counterpart to the pint-sized Ronnie Corbett. He went on to make a reputation on his own in BBC sitcoms such as Porridge and Open All Hours.

Plump and beaming, Ronnie Barker looked like an avuncular bank manager, but in costume and make-up he slipped into characters with apparent ease. Sir Peter Hall described him as “the great actor that we lost” — a natural for such roles as Falstaff and Sir Toby Belch.

Barker had come to comedy through theatre, but once he had embraced the small screen, with all its limitations, he did not look back: “I think it’s better to make people laugh than cry,” he said.

His finest creation was Norman Stanley Fletcher in Porridge, a habitual criminal who, in the words of his sentencing judge, “accepts arrest as an occupational hazard and presumably accepts imprisonment in the same casual manner.” Snout in pocket, gum in mouth, Fletcher was the old lag who knew the rules.

As a scriptwriter Barker loved to play with language. Sketches for The Two Ronnies were laced with spoonerisms and doubles entendres. A luckless character might go into a shop asking for fork handles, and be given four candles. This was not the kind of humour which could be made up off the cuff — it was based on precise scripts and perfect timing.

Barker was the first to admit that, without a script, he was not funny. He was in awe of Corbett’s ability to sit casually in front of an audience and tell shaggy-dog stories. Barker enjoyed live performance but only when in character — off-stage he was a quiet family man.

He and Corbett were a uniquely independent double act. Despite the difference in their size — which provided visual jokes — they had a similar style, and both were comfortable playing the feed or the comedian. The success of The Two Ronnies might easily have confined them to a lifelong partnership. They were friends, too, but both wanted to maintain separate careers and did so through their own sitcoms. While it was impossible to imagine Eric Morecambe without Ernie Wise, it was not impossible to imagine Barker without Corbett.

Ronald William George Barker was born in Bedford in 1929 and brought up in Oxford, where his father had a clerical job with Shell. Educated at the City of Oxford High School, Barker initially trained to be an architect but abandoned the course after six months, convinced that he did not have the necessary talent. Unenthusiastically, he joined the Westminster Bank and dreamed of becoming an actor. He spent many adolescent hours in his room, listening to radio comedians such as Tommy Handley. He kept his fellow clerks amused with impersonations and plotted his escape.

The opportunity arose when he joined the Manchester Repertory Company which, singularly, was based in Aylesbury. It was not a successful company, but Barker was enthralled. He made his professional debut on November 15, 1948, as Lieutenant Spicer in J. M. Barrie’s Quality Street. There was a new play every week. Although Barker was less portly as a youth, he was evidently not juvenile lead material, and mostly took comic roles.

In 1951 he joined the Oxford Playhouse where he spent three years. Working alongside him was the young Maggie Smith. Barker was not impressed by her youthful range, and ruefully remembered advising her to give up. Another colleague was Peter Hall, who was similiarly pessimistic about Barker’s own future. Over a pint of beer, he told Barker: “You and I will never really get on in this business, Ron. You have to be queer to get on in this business.”

It was Hall who gave Barker his break. In 1955 Hall directed a production of Mourning Becomes Electra at the Arts Theatre, London. He saw two good parts in it for Barker, and asked his friend to join him.

In 1957 Barker married Joy Tubb, an assistant stage manager. Having acquired a family to feed he kept himself employed in West End theatre for several years, but it was radio which made “Ronnie” Barker, as he now styled himself, known to a national audience. In 1959 he was offered the role of Able Seaman Johnson in the BBC’s new radio comedy, The Navy Lark. The half-hour programme was intended as a vehicle for Jon Pertwee, but Barker’s role expanded as the show became a hit.

He also started to do film work, providing the character backbone to several British comedies. In the early 1960s he supported Jimmy Edwards in his television series, The Seven Faces of Jim.