Phoenix Nights star Ted Robbins returns 10 years after collapse

He said if it was not for their swift action he would never have seen his grandchildren “because I died for 20 minutes”.

Without them, “I’d have been a gone-r in minutes,” he told BBC Radio Lancashire.

“I was due to have surgery for a faulty heart valve, which was caused when I was 11 and had rheumatic fever, which left a scar on it,” he said.

“The surgeon had let me get on the stage because I said I really wanted to do the show.

“I got up and I did get a few laughs and I just remember thinking ‘ooh, think I’ll lie down'”, before he fell to the stage.

East Lancashire-based Robbins played the character Den Perry, the rival of Kay’s character Brian Potter, in the Phoenix Nights show in 2001 and 2002.

The 2015 stage show saw the original cast of the programme reunited, with profits going to Comic Relief.

Members of the audience were asked to leave the 20,000-capacity venue after Robbins collapsed shortly after the interval.

He has also appeared in Brookside, Doctors, Holby City, Little Britain and Coronation Street.