The one Ronnie

ON a dreich autumn day, if you've got three or four cashmere sweaters with a little stain on them, give them a handwash – Lux – and rinse them in vinegar and water, then normal water. Dry them gently and then they press up a treat. Steam irons these days are fantastic."

Ronnie Corbett is describing a pastime and a passion and although you might expect one of Britain's comedic national treasures to have slightly more hedonistic habits you'd have to acknowledge that Corbett knows his stuff. It sometimes seemed he was single-handedly keeping the Scottish woollen industry afloat during the 16 years of The Two Ronnies, each week donning a different Lyle & Scott sweater as he sat in the leather chair to deliver a comedy monologue.

Corbett's trademark style was low-key, almost rambling. He sounded like he was entertaining at the 19th hole of a golf club where the gin and tonics were flowing rather than addressing an audience of millions. That's the trick and the talent of Corbett's comedy. In fact, the monologues were tightly, expertly scripted and it was only Corbett's delivery that made them sound spontaneous, as though he really might've lost the thread, or forgotten the punchline.

In person Corbett's style is just as meandering, just as charming. There goes my hypothesis that it was all an act, a persona to offset the inspired intensity of Corbett's comedy partner, Ronnie Barker. For all that we love to think of comedians as tortured souls, Ronnie Corbett may be the perfect example of a comedian without a dark side.

We're sitting in a sun-filled room in a grand, slightly faded hotel in Surrey, a couple of miles from where Corbett has lived with his wife, Anne, for nearly 40 years. Plump sofas and winged armchairs litter the space, dust motes floating in shafts of light. The first thing you notice about Corbett, who will be 78 in December, is not his height, it's his manner – he's sprightly and instantly friendly, quick to ask questions and even quicker to laugh. The next thing to strike you is his appearance. He's dapper in light-brown cords and a mustard check jacket, tan shoes buffed to a shine on the right side of ostentatious and as he sits, bright turquoise socks peek out. In his top pocket nestles a red, silk handkerchief, the cufflinks of his cream shirt decorated with a golfer in full swing.

Corbett may still be best known for his remarkable partnership with Barker, but his showbusiness career began in a church hall in Edinburgh's Grange, when young Ronald, whose time at school was unremarkable, found his niche in the pantomime at the local church. The love of performing that started in the hall of St Catherine's (noticeable enough for the minister – "a man called John Maxwell whose name I'll never forget" – to visit Corbett's mother to tell her of her son's talent), continued after National Service on the stage in London and then on TV with The Frost Report, where he first worked with Barker, and then later with The Two Ronnies. There have always been solo projects but nothing that reached the heady heights of The Two Ronnies, a Saturday night stalwart which ran from 1971 to 1987, drawing audiences of 17 million at its peak.

Since Barker's death in 2005, Corbett has been discovered by a new generation of comedians. He's worked with David Walliams and Matt Lucas ("lovely boys") in Little Britain, with Peter Kay, and with Ricky Gervais and Steven Merchant (whom he says is "very, very sweet") in Extras. The latter garnered headlines because it featured Corbett snorting cocaine in a toilet. Corbett's wife, Anne, cautioned him not to do it, but he knew it would work. "They were terrific to work with because they knew exactly what they wanted and I knew exactly what they wanted," he says.

Corbett is charmingly modest. There's an endearing streak of luvviness which sits alongside complete unpretentiousness. Every question is met with unfailing politeness and strictly no hyperbole. Did he instantly know the stage was for him? "I thought, this'll do me." What about his decision to take evening classes to rid himself of his Scottish accent so that he could work south of the Border – what made him aim for London?

"I don't know," he says, avoiding the obvious assumption that it was ambition. "Well, I suppose I realised that wonderful though they were – and I don't mean this in the case of everybody because Rikki Fulton and Jimmy Logan really were all-rounders – but there was a certain sort of 'down the road' feel (to Scottish entertainers of the day] that made me think there was a bigger world than the Palladium in Edinburgh or the Pavilion in Glasgow."

Corbett won't say it, I suspect he doesn't even think it now, but the fact is from day one, his sights were set high. He worked in bars and clubs and lived in a bedsit waiting for his big break, always seeming sure that it would come. I wonder how someone so ambitious fitted so happily into a double act, professionally with Barker but personally too, with his wife, to whom he's been married since 1965? Ronnie Corbett, it seems, is a man who is at his best as one half of a whole.

"Yes, I think you're probably right," he says, sounding unconvinced. "I enjoy company and I enjoy sharing, I suppose. My mother and father were the same. Yes, that's a point that I've never thought about before. I was always very happy to rely on Ron and he was happy to be able to turn to me and as you say, in my marriage as well. I've been very lucky in both worlds really."

According to Corbett there was never a cross word between him and Barker during their long career together. "We had very similar tastes and judgment in most things," he says. But temperamentally they were very different. The catchphrase "And it's goodnight from him," which Corbett would say on Barker's behalf at the end of each show, came about because Barker was never comfortable addressing the audience as himself. "He had to be in character," Corbett says. "He didn't know who to be if he wasn't. He didn't know what Ronnie B would be about. Funny that."

Not funny ha-ha but funny peculiar. It's even more interesting because Corbett couldn't be more different. He simply is who he is. As we chat and laugh, often he sounds just as he did in the leather chair – rambling through stories, forgetting words, losing the thread and giggling along the way. It's classic Corbett, effortlessly funny and charming. And he's endearingly nosey. "Who's that blonde woman, waving?" he asks as we talk. I don't know, I tell him. I didn't see her. Posing once again for photographs he catches sight of a group of women sitting around a table in one of the hotel's meeting rooms. "What are they doing?" he asks. I think it's some sort of market research, I tell him. He nips over to the door to say hello. They all smile because, of course, they all recognise him.

Corbett has been a well-known face for decades. His twin daughters, Emma and Sophie, had to endure him being the centre of attention on family days out, when on visits to the zoo or the museum he'd be looked at more than the actual exhibits. And it's still happening.

"Well, it's always lovely," he says. "But I took my daughter with her daughter, Tilly, to see Hairspray in the West End. It was a matinee and we were in a very, very vulnerable seat in the middle of the theatre where they have a gangway. My daughter, who's been brought up with it, remember, could not believe, after all these years, how direct and rude some people were. But if you step into an arena like that, and the matinee . . ."



Beyond the inconvenience of being recognised, being a comedian has exacted a more personal toll. "I suppose it's an unnatural act. Performing all your life," he says. "Even if you're naturally an absolute show-off, which I'm not really. You're doing something that's unnatural really, over and over again, and eventually a little chink in the armour appears."

The chink that appeared for Corbett was an ear infection – labyrinthitis – that affected his balance on stage when he was performing at the London Palladium in 1983. It took a prescription for the anti-anxiety drug Ativan to help him conquer it. "It was the first time I'd had a rocky period like that," he says. "Historically, everybody suffers from a little blip like that. Eric Morecambe suffered in a different way and Olivier suffered from it. It's a form of stage fright."

Another of Corbett's lifelong coping mechanisms has been golf. The bungalow he shares with Anne in the town of Shirley backs on to a golf course, as does their house in East Lothian where they spend a good deal of time.

"I play quite a lot of solitary golf because I go out with the dogs," he says. "At the beginning of the day or the end of the day I'll go out for seven holes or something. It's not good for the golf because I don't concentrate enough on it, probably. I watch the dogs and think about things."

Golf for Corbett means respite, relaxation and rest. Talk of courses leads us back to Scotland and Corbett's view of none other than Sir Sean Connery.

"You've just had Sean in Edinburgh with his book," he says, letting out a "ha!" that's at once mischievous and affectionate. "Bless his heart, I can't understand how he sticks to this Scottish Nationalism attitude and lives in the Bahamas. I don't know why he doesn't see that that might anger people. He's rebellious about it."

I suppose Sir Sean feels his Scottishness transcends wherever he chooses to live, I offer. Don't you feel the same?

"Do I?" He pulls the handkerchief from his top pocket and dabs his wet eyes. "These tears are not because I'm thinking of Scotland," he says with a giggle. It turns out he's got a blocked tear duct and it's making his eyes run. "I feel pretty Scottish, yes. I love the place. Edinburgh is a treat to go to – it's a real buzzing city and it's so handsome.

"I love the whole feel of Scotland – the shopping. I'm talking about the shopping for things like vegetables. I get silly about it. I end up going, 'Isn't this potato just marvellous? Is this is a Seton Mains potato?' My wife Anne says, 'it's a bloody potato!' " He chuckles at the thought.

He swears it's his diet of fish, but I can't help wondering whether it's his sheer joyfulness that keeps Corbett so spry. As far as work goes, despite a clutch of after-dinner speaking turns this month, Corbett is "winding down", he tells me, although he admits he has an eye out for the next challenge.

"I'm not driven to do more and more. If something exciting happened I'd do it but I think it'd have to be film or television, not a play. I don't know what age people stopped doing the stage in days gone by. What age did John Gielgud stop? Or Ralph Richardson? They were different animals in those days, they were up for it more than we are."

Thinking of ageing prompts a Corbett story. "Did you see the Daily Mail this morning with . . ." Seconds elapse as he tries to remember the name he's after. "Richard Wilson," he remembers. "He's in the paper this morning saying that he takes . . . what's that pill?" another even longer gap ensues. The timing's still working because I'm already laughing along with him. "I'll remember something in a minute," he chuckles. Finally it comes to him – "Viagra". "For what, I thought?" he says, laughing.

I could happily talk to Corbett all day, but it's time for another photo shoot and, I remind myself, he's nearly 78 and he's done his work for today. Over his shoulder, I can see two jackets draped on a coat hanger. "In the old fashioned theatrical tradition you used to dress up a little bit and look a little bit twinkly," he says, raising an eyebrow as he explains his costume changes. "My aunt was a tailoress, my uncle was a tailor, so I've always been interested in fabrics and textures. I've always liked to look a little bit sprauncy."

Long may that continue.

Ronnie Corbett is the subject of The South Bank Show tomorrow on STV at 10pm.