Double act habitual criminal", Fletcher (played by Ronnie Barker, already famous for his comedy partnership with Ronnie Corbett) and a young, naive, first-time prisoner, Lennie Godber. The two would bicker but endured a relationship of mutual respect. Barker also formed a partnership with David Jason in Open All Hours, with Jason playing Granville while Barker played Albert Arkwright. Many don't see this as a comedy duo, but the straight-man element coupled with Barker's funny-man antics on the show are still compressed into the script. Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson combined their success in sitcoms ("The Young Ones") and as a double act
Ronnie Barker accepted on merit and not just because he, as a star of the programme, had written them; he continued this tradition with the material he wrote later in his career. Barker brought his sketches in, claiming they had come from Wiley through Barker's agent Peter Eade, and they were very well received. To maintain the deception, Barker had criticised material he himself had submitted under the pseudonym; when a Wiley-credited sketch about a ventriloquist had been poorly received by the audience Barker told Corbett "Well, Gerald Wiley let us down there", and on another occasion, when looking at a script,