The Inbetweeners star Simon Bird has revealed how he almost died whilst filming the Channel 4 sitcom Friday Night Dinner. Simon and his co-star Tom Rosenthal (who plays his brother in the show) apparently like to make their sibling fighting look real… by making sure that it is. The show’s producers had to suspend filming when things got a little out of hand during a strangling scene, though, as Tom got a little exuberant with the strangulation and things got a little too close for comfort for Simon Bird.

“We did hurt each other quite regularly. When I hurt Tom, he would get me back on the next take,” said Simon. “It did escalate. Tom got really into the bit when he is strangling me. There was definitely a moment I thought, ‘This is the end’, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.” Before you start feeling too sorry for the geeky young actor though, it’s not all been a one-sided infliction of pain, as he explains to The Sun: “While acting, you want to make it look real, so when we gave each other dead arms or tried to strangle each other, we did it properly. We did have to stop filming because Tom has a weak knee and one of his ligaments snapped after I jumped on him.”

He remembered to clarify that it was all scripted violence, though: “I wasn’t just doing these things off my own back.”