The 65-year-old actor, who played Baldrick in the TV comedy for six years during the Eighties, told Day & Night that he has been longing for another stab at the show and is confident that creator and lead star Rowan Atkinson fancies reuniting.

“Yes I would but I don’t think we’d be able to afford Hugh Laurie’s salary do you?” he told us at the Chortle awards this week. “Rowan’s said he’d be up for it. The story always was that we’d do one where Rowan, aka Blackadder, was the bastard son of Queen Elizabeth II who used to hang around the King’s Road in the Sixties and had his own rock band including a drummer with no hair called Bald Rick. If ever that happened I’d certainly be up for that.”

Robinson says he was riddled with self-doubt when making the series but now can see its worth as a British comedy great.

“I always used to beat myself up because I thought I was terrible and it was terrible. Just occasionally I’ll catch a glimpse of it on TV and think, ‘I’m quite proud of that!’ It’s a nice feeling to have.”

However the Time Team host adds: “Every decade people say, ‘Comedy isn’t what it used to be’ and I think that’s totally disproved. The amount of good work on TV is fantastic.”