Rodney Bewes still gets nervous. Nearly half a century in the acting business and he still gets the shakes. For those of us whose acting experience is limited to third sheep in the nativity play, this seems absurd. But to Rodney (pictured), who stars in Diary of a Nobody at the Clocktower next week, it's a good sign.

"It helps me focus, and the thing is that the more experience you have, the more is expected of you. People have paid money to see you so you can't come on like a wet week.

"So I ought to be getting nervous and I ought to be feeling exhausted afterwards."

It just about makes sense, but he has played the part of the lovably absurd Charles Pooter about 250 times since 2000, when he brought the one-man show onto the stage.

Rodney is most famous for being one half of classic sitcom The Likely Lads with James Bolam, and he is relishing his solo performances: "I'll never work with other actors again. There are no other egos and no one to say darling you trod on my laugh in act two'.

Divested of this and other trappings of an actor, such as a stage manager, Rodney finds himself able to embark on a five-month UK tour at the age of 69 without complaint. "I think a lot of young actors couldn't do it," he says, "you have to be on the ball, you have to be fit - I have a gym that I go to - and you have to be sober."

And it's the younger Rodney Bewes that still indirectly haunts him; his role as Likely Lad Bob made him a household name in the 1970s, something for which he is grateful: "Once you're a likely lad people always think of you as a likely lad. People still recognise me even with my white hair, but I tell them I've dyed it for my latest part."

One staggering statistic is that, at its peak, The Likely Lads was being watched by half the country's population (including the homeless and those without a telly), but what are the chances of a revival?

"I'd love to bring it back but it'd never happen; James won't even talk about it. Funnily enough I was with Likely Lads writer Ian La Frenais and he has ideas of how it would be now.

"Bob and Sheila would be one of those middle-class poor couples who are filling up the country, and Terry would come along, he'd be in scrap metal and absolutely rolling in money."

Diary of a Nobody, Croydon Clocktower, Katharine Street, CR9 1ET; Tuesday, November 14 only, 8pm; £11.50 (£7.80 concs); call 020 8253 1030 or visit croydon.gov.uk/clocktower.