The generous tributes to the actor Edward Woodward following his death on Monday made much of the fact that he combined huge success as a television actor, in Callan and later The Equalizer, with an impressive record as a performer on stage.

The Oxford Playhouse played an significant part his career. I feel privileged to have seen him there in September 1973 in the British premiere of Ferenc Molnar’s comedy The Wolf, in which he starred with Judi Dench and Leo McKern. The play was a highlight of the Meadow Players’ last season at the theatre, under the director Frank Hauser.

It later triumphed in the West End.

Nearly 30 years later, in October 2002, I saw him at the Playhouse again in what was destined to be his last stage role, in Leonard Preston’s Goodbye Gilbert Harding. He gave a marvellous portrayal of this irascible – and very sad – early icon of the TV age.

The first tribute I heard to Woodward on Monday evening came from his friend, the comedian Roy Hudd, on Radio 4’s PM. It was doubtless a condition of his appearing that he should be given a plug for his autobiography. Presenter Eddie Mair duly obliged, telling us that the book was now out and was called A Fart in a Colander.

Did either Hudd or Mair know, I wonder, how oddly apposite that mention was?

Years ago, the great Coral Browne – on first hearing the name of Mr Woodward, exclaimed, in the rich Australian accent she reserved for her fruitier observations: “Edward Woodward! Sounds like a fart in the bath.”

Which it does – as anyone who has dared to try it will know.