Timothy West, one of Britain’s most distinguished and versatile actors, has died at the age of 90, his family have announced.

He was known for roles on stage and screen including in TV sitcoms Not Going Out and Bedtime, dramas such as Bleak House and Gentleman Jack, and soaps Coronation Street and EastEnders.

A statement released by his children said the actor died “peacefully in his sleep” and was “with his friends and family at the end”.

The actor is also survived by his wife, Fawlty Towers star Prunella Scales, to whom he was married for 61 years.

In recent years, the couple had been followed in 10 series of Channel 4’s Great Canal Journeys.

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West was born in 1934 in Bradford, the son of actors Lockwood West and Olive Carleton-Crowe.

He attended Bristol Grammar School, where his contemporaries included Julian Glover and Dave Prowse, who would later play Darth Vader in Star Wars.

West began his career in entertainment as an assistant stage manager at the Wimbledon Theatre.

He made his name on stage and screen in the 1960s, and BBC adaptations of Richard II and Edward II in the 1970s saw him reprise roles he had already played to critical acclaim in the theatre.

On the big screen, he played a member of the French intelligence service in the 1973 film adaptation of Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal.

His lead TV roles included 1980s comedy-drama Brass, in which he played ruthless self-made businessman Bradley Hardacre.

He starred in Lynda La Plante’s 1992 crime drama Framed, and was film-maker Frank Sheringham in 1994 children’s TV series Smokescreen.

In Not Going Out, the British sitcom created by Lee Mack which has been running since 2006, West played Geoffrey, the father of Lucy Adams (played by Sally Bretton).

West also appeared in seven episodes of Coronation Street in 2013 as Eric Babbage, while in EastEnders he played Stan, the patriarch of the Carter family, in 2014 and 2015.