Sir David Attenborough has said that he wished that his brother, film veteran Richard Attenborough, had been able to show off his skills as a comic actor before he died.

The Oscar-winner won acclaim for his work behind the camera directing Gandhi and Cry Freedom and for roles in films such as The Great Escape, Jurassic Park and Brighton Rock during his long career.

But naturalist Sir David told Radio Times magazine: "The thing that I'm sorry about is that actually Dick was a marvellous comic actor.

"He was very, very funny, and could be - and was - in domestic circumstances. We just spent all our time roaring with laughter - and that didn't get much of an outlet in his feature films.

"I mean, Christmas time, you know, we just sat around, roaring with laughter."

Lord Attenborough died in August, at the age of 90.

Sir David said: "I think probably the most imaginative film he made as a director was Oh! What A Lovely War.

"Shadowlands was a very powerful film, but Oh! What A Lovely War was out there on its own - no cinema film that I know of had anything like the bravura and the energy and the invention as he put into that.

"I didn't go to see 10 Rillington Place, because I couldn't bear to watch my dear brother imitating a sexual murderer. I just didn't want to see it; I'm too fond of my brother."

Sir David said that the siblings had no idea, growing up, that they would both enjoy careers in front of and behind the camera.

"I would be going out looking for magpies or newts or something, and Dick would be working at the local amateur theatre, which was extremely good, in Leicester.

"Dick was there all the time. Every night, every weekend, while I was out collecting fossils. We couldn't have been more different," he told the magazine.

"I remember going to see him on set in 1941 when I was 15. It was the first film he made with Noel Coward, In Which We Serve, and that was just astounding!

"I was just amazed at the way people were carrying on, doing 23 takes! How could he possibly manage to come out and go, 'Oh, my GOD!' 23 times? And make it better!"

The wildlife presenter said that he had always remembered what his older brother had told him about "commentary delivery".

"I think we were both aware that we were in different disciplines. I always used to go to his premieres, and he always watched my shows, and we always talked to one another about what we did and what the problems were."

But he said that their jobs were very different.

"Mine's a very limited performance because although it is a performance... it is a distillation of some particular part that's in me, that is part of me.

"My brother played John Christie, the murderer [in 10 Rillington Place); it was no part of him. The interesting thing is why he ever did anything like that. It's because he was very interested in the human psyche and what made people tick.

"But it's not the same as being a commenter on the natural world."