Ronnie Barker was 'a performer hell-bent on achieving perfection' Sauce material: Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett. The Bedford-born actor's involvement even extended to sound effects, as editor Ray Millichope told me. He'd visit my editing suite carrying a brown cardboard suitcase. Inside would be a football rattle, triangle, swanee whistle, pots and pans. Once, he had a cabbage. He said: "If you whack it, it sounds like a thump on the head."" Barker was aware some saw him as pernickety. He told me: "I know that in later years, when more in control of what I did and performed, I was regarded by many as fussing about detail, but to me it was about getting it as right as possible." He was even particular about moustaches and shocked make-up designer Jean Steward when it came to the bedraggled facial hair worn by Arkwright, the greengrocer he played in Open All Hours (which ran from 1975-85). Barker asked her to give it some rough treatment. She says: "He told me to put it on the floor and tread on it, like I was stubbing out a cigarette. His theory was that real moustaches looked lived in. Not everything Barker touched turned to gold, and the power he wielded occasionally backfired. One of his rare failures was Roy Clarke's 1984 sitcom, The Magnificent Evans. The series was directed by Sydney Lotterby, who had worked with Barker on Porridge in the mid-Seventies. He says: "Ronnie got hold of the character and wanted to do it in a particular way, and it's very difficult fighting somebody of his stature. Eventually, it's the same old thing: if he thinks he can do something better his way, you might as well let him try. The sad thing is that it was too exaggerated. Comedy classic: Porridge was arguably Barker's most successful series. His final sitcom, the self-penned Clarence (1988), about a myopic removal man, failed to hit the spot, too. But it wasn't through lack of detail. When the set designer put an artificial wisteria around the door of Clarence's country cottage, Barker commented there was too much blossom, claiming the flower only blossomed on trimmed wood or new growth, forcing the designer to make changes. His hands-on approach was possibly a sign of insecurity, something that could account for his weekly ritual before recording The Two Ronnies. At 6.30pm, the two Rons and director Terry Hughes headed for the BBC canteen, where Barker ordered his regular pre-show meal: sausage, egg and chips. Hughes says: "Every week he'd have this meal, it was like a superstition. I'm sure he thought that it wouldn't be a good show otherwise. He joked about it, but it was ritualistic, a kind of comfort food. An adroit writer, Barker started writing sketches for the show, using the pseudonym Gerald Wiley. He claimed that a pen name meant his writing was judged on merit; but it was also indicative of Barker's self-doubt and dislike of performing as himself. He hid behind characters due to chronic shyness. An intensely private man, he shunned the limelight. On screen, he needed a mask to shield Ronnie Barker, the person. With a pair of glasses or a moustache, he could play countless fictitious characters, but even for the closing scene of The Two Ronnies, where he bade farewell, Barker couldn't be himself. Reggie Perrin writer David Nobbs - script editor on the inaugural Two Ronnies series - states: "When deciding how to end the show, I suggested they simply said, "Goodnight," but Ronnie B couldn't do that as himself. So the joke of using "Goodnight from him" was devised." Barker may have been a handful to work with, but ultimately his intent was inspiring, and one that most of his colleagues respected greatly. Terry Hughes, the director of The Two Ronnies show, told me: "Ronnie would visualise material he'd written in a certain way. I might see it differently, but it was difficult manoeuvring him. When Hughes left for pastures new, the comedy actor's grip on the series" direction tightened. "I don't think he gained it, I think he took it," says Hughes. But he gave everything of himself; he was a perfectionist in the best sense of the word. That these personality traits could be combined with a gift for riotous, saucy seaside postcard humour was one of the paradoxes of the man. (Barker: There now follows a sketch featuring ghosties and ghoulies. Corbett: In which I get caught by the ghosties... Barker: And I get caught by surprise!) Barker could deliver innuendo-laden one-liners with such timing that he regularly reduced his partner to corpsing with laughter. The off-screen perfectionist was an on-screen delight. The Two Ronnies Spectacle is showing on three consecutive Wednesdays from September 25, 8pm, UK Gold.