He was a miserable old sod, apparently. Like a lot of funny men.
Hmm, yeah. Just found these:
But as time went on he wrote more and more and we felt it wasn't a level playing field any more because he would take an idea - and both Dick Vosburgh and I suffered this - and write more sketches using the same premise."
Ronnie had written new skits based on his Spoonerism-led sketches - where the humour was all about getting the beginnings and endings of words mixed up.
"Dick was absolutely furious. He phoned up about it and was told an idea was transferable. He also asked for half the money and what's more he got it, " confirms Beryl.
Dick was an incredibly witty man and wouldn't let the matter pass without a final chance of a joke utilising spoonerisms, as Beryl says. "He sent either a postcard or telegram, which said: "Ronnie Parker, you're a brick."
Ian Davidson was another writer vexed by the situation. "There were no confrontations but [Barker] was gathering more and more influence for himself, " he says. "We were all chewed off. The decent thing didn't come into it. That was our gripe.
Among writers, taking an idea and doing it yourself is unforgiveable."
Michael Palin recalls this happening to him even before The Two Ronnies - on work submitted for The Frost Report, the show on which Ronnie Corbett and Ronnie Barker first met.
"Ronnie was not above tinkering with other writers' work, " says Palin.
"Sometimes I felt he'd gone a bit far, perhaps because one feels that sense of ownership, but generally he did it because he knew he could make it funnier - and he did."
Ronnie had a reputation for being demanding, a point with which Terry Hughes agrees, before quickly qualifying his views. "He gave everything of himself. He did all his homework and was always prepared. He wanted everybody else to be prepared, too. I never found him moody, difficult or obstructive, just a perfectionist in the best sense of the word."
Barker summed it up himself:
Ronnie Barker made no excuses for being fastidious. "I know that in later years, when more in control of what I did and performed, I was regarded by many as pernickety, fussing about detail, but to me it was just getting it right, as right as it was possible to get it, " he once explained.
I'd say his approach worked.