Melvyn Hayes enjoyed his latest role

Johhny Vaughan is hoping to make the leap from likeable blokeish presenter to serious comedy writer with his new shpw 'orrible - in whicaMelvyn Hayes, who carved out a niche in TV history as Bombadier 'Gloria' Beaumont in the Seventies sitcom It Ain't Half Hot Mum is one of the many veteran comedy actors taking part in the new BBC Choice show Revolver.

Among his pedigree chums are Lionel Blair, Roy Barraclough, Nicholas Smith, Mollie Sugden, Carmen Silvera, Anna Karen, Stephen Lewis and Frank Kelly, all seen as never before in some dark, surreal situations.

He says: "It's one of the happiest shows I've ever been involved with. Apart from the fact that I was with people in the cast that I'd worked with a lot before - and if I hadn't worked with them, I knew them - you had this contrast of a very young crew and supporting cast of Scottish actors, who were also very young.

"I'm sure most of them thought we were dead. You couldn't get out of a car without one of the young ladies opening the door for you and, if it rained, they'd put an umbrella over your head. You really felt they believed that you'd died 25 years ago and had been resurrected. They wrapped us in cotton wool, which was lovely."

When Melvyn was asked to join the Revolver team, he was surprised at its format.

"When they said it was a sketch show, I expected the sort of sketches we did yesteryear, which centred on mum and dad and the kids, or a job of work, or a football match. But it was written by some 15 young people and it's a bit naughty.

"In fact," he confides with a puckish grin, "it's very naughty. And there I was, at my stage in life, being involved in something that was completely different. The only thing that wasn't different was that I was acting, which is what I love doing."

Melvyn, who was one of Cliff Richard's Young Ones and joined him for a Summer Holiday, broke into showbusiness at London's Comedy Theatre in 1950, earning £4 a week by disappearing twice daily while performing the Indian rope trick. He's notched up scores of film, theatre and TV roles and has provided the voices for several cartoon series, both in the UK and Hollywood, including SuperTed and Budgie

He relished his six weeks in Scotland shooting Revolver.

"I felt great, because I'm half Scottish - my father was born in Edinburgh," he explains, "and it was wonderful to be up there among the Scottish people. It was a great crew and nothing was shot straight.

"If you're shooting a Laurel and Hardy film, you just lock the camera and show the action. But on Revolver, for the first time in my life, you'd be playing and talking to the lens.

"Some of the things we had to do were outrageous," he reveals. "It was great fun and I loved every day of it. Now we'll just have to wait and see what happens. Because of the success of UK Gold, there are young people who know us even though they think we've died and gone to heaven, or wherever actors go to. They don't think we've been doing films and TV and theatre, or working abroad. Suddenly, they're going to be shown these characters in a new light."

The creative team behind Revolver is the one behind BBC 2's Velvet Soup, and some were bowled over by the veteran stars.

"I told Roy (Barraclough) we had something to live up to because they expected something really good from us," says Melvyn. "I can't wait to see the notices. They'll be something like 'here are the wrinklies'."

Melvyn, now 66, also spoke of his five-year-old daughter, Lily. The little girl, Melvyn's sixth child, is doubly precious to her parents because she nearly died soon after birth from a rare form of diabetes.

"We thought we'd lost her," says Melvyn. "When she was born, she was eating and feeding all the time but nothing was happening. She was losing weight instead of gaining it. After about eight days, she looked as though she was going into a coma.

"We went straight to the hospital and they did every check. They thought it might be a tumour on the brain and she might be blind, and we thought 'well, we can live with that'. Then we were told it was diabetes insipidus. Lily had no control over her drinking and was thirsty all the time - she couldn't be more than 15 minutes away from a toilet. It's a disorder of the pituitary gland and to be born with it is very, very rare."

A fateful - and lucky - set of circumstances led to Jayne and Melvyn being able to discard Lily's medication. The couple had been visiting friends and left Lily's medication in their fridge when they went home; the friends, completely unaware of the lifesaving treatment, went on holiday.

Melvyn said: "After four days, we thought that if she'd survived so long without this medication, let's investigate further. We went to see a professor at Great Ormond Street hospital who said we should stop the treatment because, whatever she had when she was born, she hadn't got it any longer. And from that day to this, she hasn't had the medication. But the weird thing is, if I hadn't left it in that fridge, she'd have been taking it for the rest of her life."

Following their discovery, and after consultation with the Pituitary Foundation, letters and phone calls flooded in to Melvyn from people who hadn't realised they could be treated for the condition.

Almost losing his tiny daughter made Melvyn reflect on life's priorities.

"This year I'm in panto at Worthing and, instead of going into an hotel, I'm going to rent a flat so that the family can come and stay," he says.

"They spent a couple of weeks with me while I was filming Revolver in Scotland, which was smashing. But sometimes I just don't want to go away. Otherwise, the people you're working for, you're not spending time with."

First published: July 9, 2001h he also plays the anti-hero, villainous cab driver and local fence Paul Clark.

The series represents everything that Vaughan and writing partner Ed Allen - son of comedian Dave - love and hate about the aspirational villain. Described by Vaughan as a hybrid of Billy Liar and Minder, the series chronicles the wayward path of a part-time minicab driver who peddles 'moody' toasters around his local - aided only by steroid-bloated sidekick Sean, played by Ricky Grover.

"Ed and I are obsessed with people lying to us and the lies we tell each other, so I suppose 'orrible come from there," says Vaughan. "It's based on people we know - and ourselves - particularly the more deluded people we've met along the way. All the world's a pseudo gangster at the moment. Everyone wants to be a semi-criminal."

And the 35-year-old Vaughan, whose impressive TV career flourished following a short spurt of small-time crime (for which he did his time), should know more than most about the slightly shady world of the petty crim.

"orrible is about people who promise things that they can't possibly deliver in order to ingratiate themselves - particularly dodgy things," says Vaughan. "It's based on people who lie to impress. My character really fools himself. And it's not as if he just wants to be a nice, ducker and diver like your classic Arthur Daley or Del Boy. He really wants to be a villain. He wants to deal in drugs and violence. He believes that he's about to make it big."

Barnet-born Vaughan - who was educated privately at Uppingham School in Leicestershire - left school at 18 and went on to develop a somewhat eclectic CV which includes periods spent working as a grill chef, jewel courier, sales assistant and surveying shoppers on the various merits of potato snacks.

It wasn't until 1994 that Vaughan's big TV break came in the shape of Moviewatch which led to a string of presenting roles, culminating in co-hosting The Big Breakfast and restoring flagging viewing figure.

"I'm naturally suited to presenting. Anyone who is a show-off would be," he says. "Just chatting away and showing off for a couple of hours every morning, live, comes easily. If you sat me down with a group of mates I'd probably have a laugh in a similar way. At the end of presenting a show, I have loads of energy but don't necessarily feel any great sense of achievement. Conversely, I find writing and acting really hard work, but I also find it very worthwhile."

Initially, Vaughan didn't intend to play 'orrible's small-time geezer and big-time loser himself.

"Originally, Paul was meant to be a big, fat bloke," says Vaughan. "He was meant to be this overweight bullshitter - this guy who sat and ate, constantly, and lied about villainy. He needed a whole sofa just to sit down! He was just like this fat, minicab driver. You'd say to him: 'How long have you been driving a minicab for?' And he'd say: 'What, that's what you think I do, is it? Yeah, well, you think what you think, mate, cause this is a very good cover!"'

But, during casting, Vaughan found himself reading the lead so often that he eventually decided to take on the role himself, opting to flesh out his character's barnet rather than his belly.

"It's such a specific character that it had to be pitched in exactly the right way and nobody really understood it better than me and Ed," he says.

But he thinks viewers will accept him playing a role. "I think people have seen me do quite a lot of character stuff. Anyone who's watched me presenting has seen me donning silly outfits for sketches. And I know I can do 'funny voices', as my mum says!

"I hope that I'm not totally compartmentalised as a presenter. People are used to seeing me muck about and I hope they won't just see me as Johnny Vaughan. I want them to really get into the character. And I've got really dramatic hair in the series which should throw them off the scent!"

Vaughan admits that he has bigger arguments with writing partner Allen - whom he met more than a decade ago - than he does with his wife of two years.

"I've written with Ed for years and he's one of my best mates. But you do fall out quite a lot - about words!" he laughs. "And then you realise that you're not really arguing about the line, it's just become a battle of pride. We have the most shocking arguments, but then we walk out of the room and we go for a drink together and it's forgotten. You've got to be very strong mates to do that. People say that you shouldn't work with your friends, but I've found that you don't actually know who your friends are until you've worked with them."

"I write things that I find funny and that's the only thing worrh concentrating on," he aadds. "Once you start trying to think: 'What will our audience find funny?' you're lost. How can you possibly know what a few million people's sense of humour is?

"I really think that comedy has got to come from somewhere. The things that I've enjoyed the most over the last couple of years - The League Of Gentlemen, I'm Alan Partridge and Big Train - all come from groups of people with a sense of humour that they remain true to. That's what's so nice. That kind of comedy isn't a nebulous load of rubbish, it has real personality."

First published: September 3, 2001

Published: 22 Mar 2009