Robin Askwith leapt to notoriety in the 1970s as star of the saucy Confessions films. ANDREW WHITE talks to the 'junior Sid James'..

IT WAS the 1970s. British cinema had been trundling along in the same cosy little rut for years. Audiences were getting bored. We wanted something different. We wanted glamour, power, sexiness...and we wanted it now!

So they gave it to us - a lanky twit with Austin Powers teeth.

Robin Askwith had been taking his clothes off professionally since his first starring role at the age of 17 in Lindsay Anderson's controversial 1968 film If.

But it was a series of saucy, sub-Carry On sex comedies that made the actor's name - and forever associated him with low-grade smut.

Starting with Confessions of a Window Cleaner in 1974, Askwith fondled, groped and bonked his way through a sizeable portion of the female acting profession (including the likes of Lynda Bellingham and Jill Gascoine).

Currently starring alongside fellow 70s comedy star John Inman in Bedside Manners at Bournemouth's Pier theatre, Askwith says he was always happy to take off his clothes - or, as a scene in the first Confessions film called for, blow bubbles out of his bottom.

"It didn't bother me at all. I had to take my clothes off in If and it carried on from there," says the actor, whose clothed film credits include Carry On Girls and Bless This House.

"I wasn't leaping up and down to be in the film at first. I'd made many films by then and I didn't think it had any legs.

"I just auditioned for it for it like anyone else, but most people turned it down. Then it became a Columbia-Warner film, which gave it a bit more clout."

Askwith was fascinated by the film industry from his early days.

"My next-door-neighbour was a studio manager at Pinewood Studios. I used to go on set and watch films like Cleopatra being made. I was so lucky - but I was more impressed by seeing people like Sid James and Guinness than Elizabeth Taylor."

Askwith was viewed by audiences and producers alike as a sort of junior Sid James. He finally got the chance to work with the Carry On stalwart in 1973, playing his son in the film version of Bless This House.

"He was like my father. He was such a guiding light in the comedy genre.

"The character I became known for was a happy-go-lucky, testosterone-charged idiot, really - not a million miles from Sid."

Askwith followed up his success in the Confessions films with a series of self-produced stage spin-offs.

Despite their undeniable tattiness, the Confessions films still enjoy an ardent fan following. Askwith found himself watching them again by way of research for his autobiography, Confessions of Robin Askwith.

"I'm not a fan of watching myself. I never know what to make of me. All I can say is that I get more fan mail now than ever."

Askwith's CV is more varied than you might imagine. Among his weightier theatre roles are parts in She Stoops to Conquer and The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui.

Sadly, his performance as an English submarine captain in the 2000 film U571 ended up on the cutting room floor, while another film, The Alone in the Dark, in which he stars with Rik Mayall, has yet to hit cinemas.

Following a divorce, Askwith moved to the Mediterranean island of Gozo, where he now runs his own animal sanctuary.

"I'm the Carla Lane of Gozo. I spend most of my life rescuing cats, dogs and donkeys. I look after them and then re-home them."

"There's a very nice way of life out there. There's no crime, which is extraordinary, and the people are very nice. I feel very protected, and it's very easy to commute to work in the UK."

Gozo isn't quite the celebrity-free hideaway he imagined, though.

"There was one occasion when I was rescuing some animal which had got stuck under a lorry. There was all this shouting and squealing going on and I came out absolutely caked in muck and oil.

"As I came out I saw Robson Green standing there on a mobile phone. He just looked at me in disbelief."

Future acting roles for Robin include a self-penned one-man show based on the life and death of Rolling Stones guitarist (and Askwith lookalike) Brian Jones.

Sounds like the perfect hedonistic role for Askwith, although bubble-blowing will be in short supply.

Speaking of which... How exactly did they achieve that effect?

"It's all in the book. All I will say is that it was quite painful and involved some poor man pumping air through a pipe."

Bedside Manners is at the Pier Theatre, Bournemouth until Saturday September 6. Box office: 01202 456456.