In the last few weeks I’ve been making a series in the Philippines for 5 and ITN. At the same time as I was swimming about on the beautiful island of Palawan, I was also in a care home near Manchester explaining to my son (Pearce Quigley ) what humunculi are.

I’m never quite sure if I’m an actor who travels, or a traveller who acts, but when they both happen at the same time I realise that the two aren’t that different. Both acting and travelling are about observation, about learning something you didn’t know before. So, at the age of 82 (going on 83) I’ve learnt how to grow humunculi and how to swim with sardines.

Now I‘m back home, I’ve temporarily given up acting and travelling and taken up authoring, writing a book about the Philippines and doing publicity for the delayed (but very beautiful) In Nigeria book which is published on May 28th. And I still keep a diary.

It’s easy not to do all these things. To let other people do them for you, but I’ve always been arrogant enough to think there’s something I can do which no-one else can. In Mackenzie Crooke’s care home everyone was asleep except for Brian who was busy making extraordinary marble runs.

See what I mean.

Small Prophets is the first ‘serious’ acting I’ve done since playing The Green Man in Worzel Gummidge. That lovely warm, rural series was written by Mackenzie Crook. I enjoyed working with him so much that when, six years later, he offered me the part of Brian Sleep in Small Prophets, I didn’t hesitate. Though I had travelling to do in Venezuela and a book to write on my return, by a stroke of luck, my Venezuela work was over at almost precisely the time when Small Prophets was to be shot. In May last year, I took a train up to Manchester for a read-through and in a high-ceilinged strikingly modern room which bore Victoria Wood’s name I first became Brian and met my screen son, Michael, played by Pearce Quigley.

Some read-throughs simply show how much work still needs to be done. Not Small Prophets. From the moment we first opened our scripts and read it through we knew that Mackenzie’s script and choice of actors melded together perfectly.

And so it was during the filming. The scenes came naturally to life and Mackenzie’s quiet authority made sure the humour, the emotion and the magic were perfectly balanced.

And now the response since the series aired seems to be proving that making good television doesn’t need tantrums or tearing your hair out. Getting it right doesn’t have to be agonising. If the foundations are right it just works.

For me Small Prophets was a delight to be involved in. I’m delighted that the viewers seem to think so too.

Watch all episodes now on iPlayer.