Comedian criticises TV chiefs over 'obsession with ratings'

The 56-year-old claimed no one trusts him to front a series until they know the last one has been a success, and the waiting process feels like "they want to push you off the cliff at any point".

The star, who visits Sydney, Hong Kong and Rome in a forthcoming series of Greatest Cities with Griff Rhys Jones, said he did not yet know whether he would be commissioned to make another.

He said: "We haven't discussed it. It got very good figures but nobody in television will trust me to make a television series before they've seen figures for the last one. Since Restoration I have made a string of incredibly successful series but every time I ask 'What would you like me to do next?' they say 'We'll just see how this one goes,' and you get the feeling they want to push you off the cliff at any point – but I'm hanging on in there."

The comic, who found fame alongside Mel Smith in Alas Smith and Jones, also blamed the ratings game for keeping the comedy sketch show going for too long.

The actor, who is currently appearing as Fagin in the West End production of Oliver!, said it was not his decision to stop doing TV comedy.

He said: "I've never said no to going back into TV but they decided in 1997 that they didn't (want Alas Smith and Jones any more), and I did spend a little bit of time knocking on doors and realising that they weren't going to do what I wanted to do so I just stopped knocking on doors and got on and did something else."

He added, however, that he was grateful for his diverse career.

"I have to say that coming in, dropping off one bag and picking up another and going out the office has been a great thing, a fantastic thing.

"It's all a whim, people change, people at the top change so the one thing you need to do is do it while it's there because at one point someone's going to arrive and say 'Not him, I don't want him anymore'."

n The new series of Greatest Cities with Griff Rhys Jones begins on April 22 on ITV1.