Not only is his career enjoying a revival with the sucess of the whimsical detective series Midsomer Murders, but his private life is also blissful, John has every reason to be happy and he knows it...
'At the time I was playing him, there were definite similarities,' admits John. 'When I consilted a solicitor over my own divorce he thought I was there researching the part. Where Bergerac and I truly differed was that I never had a drink problem - despite what one journalist said about me. The headline was 'Bergerac Drove me to Drink' and resulted from a discussion I'd had with her about me playing Leontes for the Royal Shakespeare Comapny in which the subject of drinl had never been mentioned. It could make you very cynical.'
John's life has reflected his characters. As Bergerac was largely unhappy, but now he's playing the laid back family man DCI Barnaby in Midsomer Murders, which returns soon with two feature-length specials, his own life is content.
'Tom Barnaby is so normal, it almost hurts,' laughs John. 'He drives an Astra and likes to go to the garden center. He dotes on his wife and daughter. He's moving house and because he's such a domestic soul, this represents a major event. But he also has a brilliant investigative mind and can solve crimes that would, in real life, take an entire police force years to penetrate. I find that juxtaposition rather fascinating. I'm not nearly as calm as Barnaby, even now. The similarities are that I'm happily married and I have a daughter, I love them both very much but I don't dote on them the way Barnaby does. He treats his wife like she's a hugely expensive prize. I have a far more rough and tumble relationship with mine. Lets just say its a bit more real.'
John's wife is Cathryn Sealey. They met at a showbiz party in the early 1980s. They finally married in 1996 andnow live in the Cotswolds with their two dogs. John's first marriage to Joyce lasted 13 years and ended amicably. By a strange quirk of fate, their daughter Emma, 27, works for the police data department in Jersey.
John was adopted at birth by a family from a small Cornish clay mining community.
'It was like a huge happy family, we all spent time in each others houses. We were all from the same social class and no-one had more money than anyone else,' he says. 'I can't think of a more loving and supportive environment to have grown up in, it really has coloured my whole life.'
His natural mother died from TB aged 28, having been put in a mental institution.
'That was the fate of women who had illegitimate babies in those days. They were considered unstable,' he says, but his illegitimacy has never bothered him. 'It was insignificant, apart from being a romantic detail I could impress the girls with. All that was missing was the club foot and violins in the background. It was marvellous for my Byronic period,' he laughs.
It has certainly never harmed his career. Alongside his TV fame, John has worked on and off for 10 years at the RSC.
'Both aspects of my career have given me as much pleasure,' he says. 'Working on Midsomer Murders has been especially delightful because for each one a fresh wave of brilliant actors arrives. We've had Frank Windsor, Richard Briers, Prunella Scales, Phyllida Law, Liz Spriggs - these people are like gods to me, yet there they are in front of me, having a fag and a cup of tea.'
He says he wishes he'd got the chance to work with hell-raiser Oliver Reed, and as he talks you can hear a slight longing in his voice for his own wilder days, before he adds, 'But I wouldn't want to be living in the 1960s again. I'm happy where I am.'
And then by way of a parting shot, he relates one of his favourite stories about the poet Sir John Betjeman.
'Betjeman was on Radio 4 once and he was asked by a very posh interviewer if there was anything he would have changed about his life. He replied in an equally posh voice, 'Yes, more ****ing'.
John hoots with laughter, and for a second there are traces of his old wicked self, but then they are, as DCI Barnaby might say, 'Safely under lock and key again.'