The duo maintained their careers as solo performers; Barker notably starred as inmate Norman Stanley Fletcher in the sitcom Porridge (1974–77) and its sequel Going Straight (1978) and as shopkeeper Arkwright in Open All Hours (1976–85).

He wrote comedy under his own name, though for much of his written material after 1968 he adopted pseudonyms (including "Gerald Wiley") to avoid pre-judgment of his writing talent.

The first play he saw was Cottage to Let and he once skipped school to see Laurence Olivier in Henry V.[12] He frequently stood outside stage doors to collect autographs, his first being the actress Celia Johnson.

[15] Barker failed to get into the Young Vic School,[15] but joined the Manchester Repertory Company, which was based in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, often taking comic roles in their weekly shows.

"[18] 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.

[15] 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.

[15][21] 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.

[26] 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 Russian embassy worker Grischa Petrovitch).

[27] This was followed with dramatic parts in A Tale of Two Cities as Jerry Cruncher in 1965 as well as a single episode role in The Avengers, in which he played Cheshire, a cat lover.

[38] Speculation began about Wiley's identity, with Tom Stoppard, Frank Muir, Alan Bennett and Noël Coward all rumoured.

[6][9] 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.

Their performance at the award show impressed the BBC's Head of Light Entertainment Bill Cotton and Controller of BBC1, 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.

"[9][40] 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.

[24] 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.

[50] While filming on location Barker and Corbett would look through all of the potential material for the studio recording of the rest of the show's content and decide on the running order.

[60] Barker was reportedly offended by a sketch called "The Two Ninnies" on the BBC's Not the Nine O'Clock News, which mocked their act as being based on dated innuendo-based humour.

They performed their stage show for four weeks in Sydney and a further four in Melbourne; because of their existing popularity in Australia and what Corbett termed the Australian audiences' "[comedic] soul that still related to the UK", they made no changes to the routine.

"[6] The opening sequence of the programme showed Fletcher being directed to his cell, as prison doors are locked behind him, all the while the judge can be heard pronouncing judgement and sentence.

The show became a huge success, attracting 15 million viewers and earning what the BBC described as "a chorus of critical acclaim and public adoration for what remains one of the most classic British sitcoms ever produced.

[9] The same year, determined not to be remembered only as Fletcher, Barker opted to end Porridge after three series and instead focused on the second pilot Open All Hours, alongside David Jason.

[6][9] Both shows placed in the top ten of the 2004 poll to determine Britain's Best Sitcom; Porridge finished seventh and Open All Hours eighth.

In 1987,[58] before Clarence aired and after rejecting Hall's offer of the part of Falstaff in a Royal National Theatre production of Henry IV, Part 1 & 2,[9] Barker retired from show business, aged 58, "at the height of his fame",[15] citing a decline in his own writing quality,[24] lack of ambition and ideas, and a desire to go out on top so as not to damage his legacy,[6] as well as concerns about the state of his heart.

[9] In 2002, director Richard Loncraine persuaded Barker to appear as Winston Churchill's butler David Inches in the BBC-HBO drama The Gathering Storm and then cast him in the larger role of the General in the TV film My House in Umbria in 2003, alongside Maggie Smith (whom Barker had advised, early in their careers, to give up acting as he felt she would not be a success).

[6] Dennis Baker of The Guardian wrote that Barker "preferred innuendo over the crudely explicit, a restraint that demanded some imagination from the audience and was the essence of his comedy.

[93] Adam Barker became an actor, but was jailed for twelve months in 2012 on twenty counts of making indecent images of children, having evaded police for eight years; he was not present at his father's funeral.

"[9] Barker was a heavy smoker until 1972, when he gave up the habit after having a pre-cancerous growth removed from his throat; he took to drinking wine and using placebo cigarettes to maintain his concentration and help him sleep.

[9] The Guardian said he was "much loved ... both as an actor and a writer he was recognised as a master of pyrotechnic puns, surreal behaviour in public and private places, and crackling cross-chat".

It concluded that "it says much about the decline of the British television industry that Ronnie Barker, one of its most creative comic talents, should have turned his back on it long before he died at the age of 76.

[112] A bronze statue of Barker, sculpted by Martin Jennings and showing him in character as Norman Stanley Fletcher, was unveiled at the entrance of the Aylesbury Waterside Theatre in September 2010 by his widow Joy, David Jason and Ronnie Corbett.