Doncaster Open All Hours star Sir David Jason reveals 'seriously bad' Covid collapse

The 82-year-old actor, who starred as Granville in the 1970s sitcom and its more recent Still Open All Hours reboot, told BBC Breakfast he was fine during the pandemic until succumbing to the virus in July this year.

"I got it seriously bad," he said.

"Because all the muscles weren't working, I collapsed and I fell against the radiator... I was so weak, I couldn't get up."

Explaining that he had got up to go to the toilet, Sir David told Breakfast's Jon Kay: "I crawled to the bed. The muscles weren't working and I used the bed to try and stand up so that I could go to where I wanted to get, and also get back into bed, and I couldn't…

"I tried for about a quarter of an hour, trying all sorts of things to stand up so I could walk about."

He attempted to get to the door to call to his wife, but said: "My arms wouldn't work and my legs wouldn't work, so being a very creative and inventive person, I thought, how will I get from here to the door?

"You know when you see a walrus if you watch David Attenborough, and they walk on land, they crawl on land? That's what I did.

"But in order to do that, I had to use my head. So now I'm lying face down on the ground, and in order to get to the door - and the arms really weren't working and the legs weren't working - I was using my head to drag me to the door.

"So just as I got to the door, the door opened... and it was my good lady wife and she managed to help me get back into bed. But later on the next day, I got carpet burns all down on my forehead and across the top of my nose."

The classic corner shop sitcom, filmed at a converted hairdressing salon on the corner of Scarth Avenue and Lister Avenue in Balby, teamed Sir David up with comedy icon Ronnie Barker and returned several years ago, with Granville now running the shop.