{"id":133735,"date":"2025-05-26T16:55:08","date_gmt":"2025-05-26T16:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/133735\/"},"modified":"2025-05-26T16:55:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-26T16:55:08","slug":"sir-david-jasons-honest-verdict-on-ronnie-barker-after-he-showed-true-colours-celebrity-news-showbiz-tv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/133735\/","title":{"rendered":"Sir David Jason’s honest verdict on Ronnie Barker after he showed true colours | Celebrity News | Showbiz & TV"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sir David Jason<\/a> has spoken out about the late Ronnie Barker, with whom he collaborated on the BBC<\/a> series Open All Hours. The two actors were close colleagues and first forged an alliance in the comedy series Hark at Barker in 1969. They then became a household favourite on Open All Hours, which ran for four seasons. Tragically, Ronnie died in 2005 at the age of 76. Speaking to The Times<\/a> in an exclusive interview, David said, \u201cI was going to say Ronnie was always up to no good but that\u2019s unfair; he was great fun and he was great company. Whenever I\u2019m working or with people, if anything happens to make me laugh, I often am reminded of working with Ronnie.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added, “I have such fond memories of his off-screen stuff that nobody else can ever see. One day, we were at rehearsals for Open All Hours, and Ronnie and I did something that was not in the script.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever it was, we made ourselves laugh \u2014 fall about laughing \u2014 and as we came off the set Ronnie was still giggling away and he said to me, \u2018Aren\u2019t we lucky to be doing something that makes us laugh and we\u2019re getting paid for it?\u2019 That very moment has stuck with me forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ronnie was also known for his iconic role in Porridge as Norman Stanley Fletcher, a criminal serving time for an unspecified crime in the fictional HMP Slade. The full series was an immediate hit with viewers and became so popular across all age groups that even Blue Peter took a behind-the-scenes look with children.<\/p>\n

After a glittering career, he retired from television in 1988, aged just 59. His decision to retreat from public life came as a shock to his followers and peers, including his co-star and close friend David Jason.<\/p>\n

In his autobiography, This Time Next Year,<\/a> the Only Fools and Horses star penned: \u201cI felt it was far too soon for a man of Ronnie\u2019s talents to be stepping down… but there was nothing I or anyone else could do or say to change his mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was adamant, and it was hard to challenge him on it because I knew he had his own personal reasons for being so. Put bluntly, he feared the work might one day kill him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ronnie had also dealt with the grief of losing several of his close friends. In 1984, his colleague Eric Morecambe collapsed on stage<\/a> at the age of 58 from a heart attack and died in hospital.<\/p>\n

A few months later, Rising Damp<\/a> star Leonard Rossiter<\/a> also died from a heart attack. What’s more, Ronnie was very affected by the death of his Porridge co-star, Richard Beckinsale<\/a>, in 1979, aged just 31 years old. The actor also suffered a heart attack at home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir David Jason has spoken out about the late Ronnie Barker, with whom he collaborated on the BBC…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3937],"tags":[77,22020,58815,58814,58817,58818,58816,58813,382,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-133735","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-only-fools-horses","10":"tag-open-all-hours","11":"tag-ronnie-barker","12":"tag-ronnie-barker-death","13":"tag-ronnie-barker-porridge","14":"tag-sir-david-jason-ronnie-barker","15":"tag-sir-david-jasonx","16":"tag-tv","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114575187865540578","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}