Hugh Dennis on Ronnie Barker My Hero

Years ago I was in a sitcom, and we used to film here for exteriors.

This is Pinner Village Hall.

And what I loved about it was the fact that I spent many hours

in there waiting for my shot, and this was opened by Ronnie Barker.

And there was a...a kind of a plaque thing inside, a stone plaque.

It just seems so sort of ordinary.

It seems to fit the guy, really.

There you go.

The most unspectacular kind of foundation stone you have ever seen.

It always cheered me up at the time.

Because it felt like you were, sort of,

somewhere where comedy had been before.

HE ROARS

THEY LAUGH

Hugh Dennis is one of our biggest comedy stars,

appearing in the massively popular sitcom Outnumbered,

in topical radio comedy,

and as a favourite guest on panel shows,

including a regular spot on Mock The Week.

I genuinely get confused between Mervyn King and Marvin Gaye.

But Hugh never quite intended to build a career out of making people laugh.

I've just never really had a plan.

I've always been delighted by the things that have happened to me.

Even now, I spend a lot of my career going, "Oh that sounds great.

"No, I'd like to do that, yeah, that sounds good."

And just being very, you know, I'm very pleased to be asked.

Hugh's in Cambridge, where he was a student in the early 1980s.

He's meeting up with writer and comedian Steve Punt.

Stephen.

Magnificent walking through a door there - marvellous.

They've been working together since their student days.

-I came up here thinking that I was much more stupid than everybody else.

-Right.

Because I hadn't done very well in my A levels.

-So I spent the first year and a half kind of in my room.

-Yeah.

Working. And I had the nickname "Desk" by virtue of that.

Yeah. Desk Dennis.

-Desk Dennis, yeah.

-Yeah.

No, I remember going to your room. It was very tidy and organised for a student room.

-Oh, yeah. God, yeah.

-Lot of books.

I remember yours. It smelled of potato.

It was not as organised.

Your room was sort of mainly socks and crisps, as I remember. And scripts.

In Hugh and Steve's day, students at Cambridge with comedy ambitions

joined The Footlights, the dramatics club famed as the training ground

for some of the leading lights of British comedy.

You are auditioning, are you not, for the role of Tarzan?

I think that Jean-Paul's masterwork is an allegory of man's search for commitment.

-No, it isn't.

-Yes, it is.

-Isn't.

-Is!

That's the super, the lovely and the gorgeous.

Well, I spent two years here not having anything to do with comedy.

-I'd never heard of Footlights, at all.

-You'd never heard of Footlights?

No. I didn't know what Footlights was. Isn't that crazy?

It's so embarrassing, I can't bear to tell them!

When you say you're at Cambridge, they think you're really clever!

I just chicken out. I just say I'm at Oxford.

How did you know about Footlights?

How did I know about Footlights?

I knew about Footlights because my parents used to talk about,

"Oh, Peter Cook and Monty Python, they all came from Cambridge Footlights, you know."

We didn't have conversations like that in my house.

Oh, that's, um...

We watched quite a lot of comedy, though.

On a Saturday night, everybody would watch The Two Ronnies.

Through the 1970s and '80s,

Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett kept Britain amused.

-Is this the hearing aid centre?

-Pardon?

I just thought it was fantastically fun.

Now we'll do the end, ladies and gentlemen.

We'll do the end jokes now, having done the beginning jokes.

You have to pretend you've seen it all, seen the show, and this is the end.

Then we throw you all out, and get another lot in.

The Two Ronnies would always spell out the joke for you.

Sorry about that. It appears that we've had a problem with the news.

They would always go, "And now the news.

"And sadly the typewriter has no letter E."

-Off we go.

-And off you go.

Off we go.

Good ovoing.

I used to love it. I used to love it.

Her majesty the Quoon

was at home today to unvoil a momorial

to sovoral great Onglishmon of lottors and poots,

including Anthony Trollopo, HG Wolls and Hillairo Bolloc.

My favourite joke for years and years and years was that,

you know, a ship carrying paint.

Now here is the late news.

We've just heard that in the English Channel, a ship carrying red paint

has collided with a ship carrying purple paint.

It's believed both crews have been marooned.

One Ronnie in particular inspired Hugh.

Ronnie Barker was amazing.

He was just supremely good,

an incredibly sort of finely-tuned comedy machine.

He could do anything, as far as I could work out.

Good evening.

There is one called Rook Restaurant.

Oh, look! The menu's shaped like a rook.

And in Rook Restaurant, it's a restaurant that only serves rook.

There's roast rook, braised rook, steamed rook, stuffed rook.

What is this?

HE SPEAKS FRENCH

And Ronnie Barker just simply replies...

Rook.

And I...I still say that to myself.

What's that? Rook.

It's fantastic. It was sort of a classic Two Ronnies sketch.

Why would you have a...? Who thought up Rook Restaurant?

I expect it's nicer than it sounds.

Bleeding isn't.

The Two Ronnies weren't... By the time we got here, were they cool?

-They weren't?

-No.

They were never cool, but they were deeply uncool in the early '80s.

Although Hugh had no plans to do comedy himself,

other students spotted that he had a talent.

There was a group of us who were already doing Footlights

and everyone suddenly went, "There's this bloke, apparently, who can do accents."

-And that was it?!

-And nobody else did accents.

Was that the reason?

Or if they did an accent, it would be one accent.

Hi, Nicotine.

Do you know who I am?

What a flimsy reason for, you know, having a career in comedy.

Somebody thought I could do accents, and that was it.

After university, Hugh and Steve continued writing sketches and performing occasional gigs.

For Hugh, it was only a sideline.

We did a few gigs in London.

Then you started selling toothpaste and deodorant.

I think that's...that's demeaning it slightly.

I was a Unilever marketing man.

You were a Unilever marketing executive.

And to Unilever people, that's quite important. It's not just flogging toothpaste.

-Yeah. But it did...

-Come, come.

-..mean that we could drive back from gigs whilst thinking of slogans for deodorant.

-Yeah.

In 1989, Hugh and Steve joined with their Cambridge colleagues

David Baddiel and Rob Newman in The Mary Whitehouse Experience.

After six years at Unilever, Hugh left his job for comedy full-time.

In the early days of writing sketches, did you think,

"I'm going to try and write a sketch a bit like Ronnie Barker"?

Yeah, absolutely.

This is the Belding building?

Oh, yes, this is the Belding building,

formerly the Fielding Wilding Belding building.

Fieldind and Wilding?

Yes, Fielding Moling and Wilding Welding,

but what with Fielding folding and Wilding melding with Belding,

it's become a Belding holding.

And there's no Ponting Punting?

No, we've got a Keeling and Greeling Wheeling and Dealing.

I have a feeling there's a failing in your filing.

I can sue the so-called publications for their trumped-up charges

of the pecadiloes of the arms trade,

the armadillos of the pet trade,

and the cigarillos of the wall of trade,

where I allowed this deal to go through. Fall through!

Fall guy! I am not through. I shall definitely not be resigning.

It wasn't just the wordplay in The Two Ronnies that impressed Hugh.

There was also Ronnie Barker's performance in Hugh's favourite sitcom, Porridge.

-I know you didn't take 'em.

-How can you be sure?

Cos I know you.

I know the kind of person you are.

Hm.

Besides, when you was in the shower, I went through all your gear.

I can definitely remember the, um, "Oh, yeah, Godber."

"Oh, does it, Mr Mackay?"

I used to say that about every 15 minutes.

-"Oh, does it, Mr Mackay?"

-Yeah.

"Now that is where you're wrong, sir."

Oddly enough, we shied away from doing that actually in our acts.

We'd happily do any of the others,

but it always felt slightly sacrilegious to do...

-To do Ronnie.

-..to do Ronnie Barker. Cos he was too good to do.

And when we eventually did do Fletcher and Godber...

Night, Mr MacKay.

'It was a one of those ones where it felt really sort of dodgy doing it.'

I've felt like that about almost everything that I've done. Ever.

Mind you, old Warblood, he's very popular with the screws.

He must bear some responsibility for what I do,

because he was sort of the master of the...of the thing that I now do.

Now a comedy veteran himself, Hugh's going to take a fresh look

at his hero, hoping to gain a deeper understanding of Ronnie's talent.

The thing about Ronnie Barker, he was never really in the paper...

I don't think there were many big interviews with him.

I wasn't aware of his home life or any of that kind of stuff.

So actually, I know nothing about Ronnie Barker

other than what I have seen on television.

And that he grew up in Oxford,

so that seems like a fairly good place to start, really.

And that's where I'm going.

Slowly, through the snow, carefully, cos it might be icy.

Hi, Clive.

Hello, Hugh.

Where are we heading - this way?

Hugh and Ronnie's old schoolmate, Clive Denton,

are visiting what used to be Oxford's grammar school for boys.

74 years since I went through that door.

Clive and Ronnie were in the same class here from 1939.

Ten-year-old Ronnie joined in a favourite playground game.

The first one used to hold onto the railing there

and bend down like that.

The second one used to come behind

-and put his head between your bum, like that.

-OK.

-Are you with me?

-Yeah, no, I think I am, yeah.

And all the way along until you had a whole load of about ten boys...

-Yeah.

-..all in a long line of a barrel.

-Yeah.

-And then they take a terrific run and jump onto the barrel

and see how far they could get to the end.

-Oh, what, so kind of just push themselves along?

-Yeah.

Then they'd get off and they'd have to join on and the barrel got bigger and bigger and bigger.

And did many boys go to hospital with neck injuries or...?

No! No, no, no, nobody went to hospital.

-No-one?

-Never.

Everybody had nicknames, and in his case,

because he was a little bit on the portly side, we'll say, um, together

with this bumsy game, we decided that he's got to be Bumsy Barker.

-Right.

-So Bumsy Barker was his name.

Right. OK.

Oddly enough, he didn't use that on television.

No, he didn't use it on television.

Bumsy Barker. So how long was he Bumsy Barker for?

All the years, the six years I was here, he was Bumsy Barker and I was Skinny Billy.

Oh, OK. If I might say, that's a slightly better name.

Well, he was fat and I was thin.

And once you got to know Ronnie, were you aware that he was funny?

Did it...did it kind of surprise you when he ended up doing what he did?

He was a bright boy. I mean, he got in there with a scholarship.

-Yeah.

-There's no way I would've got a scholarship.

But his humour was much more sophisticated than ours.

Ours was all slapstick stuff.

He was much more advanced than any of us.

Ronnie's childhood home was a 30-minute walk away,

in Cowley, then a new suburb.

Hugh's meeting Ronnie's biographer, Richard Webber.

So this has got a blue plaque,

so I'm assuming that this is Ronnie Barker's house.

Yeah, it's where he spent I think the great part of his childhood.

So he lived here. I can't read that - isn't that terrible?

Lived here 1935 to 1949.

So he must...this house must have been new, I guess, mustn't it, when he...when were these built?

Yeah, it was built in... He moved into it as a new house.

-Hello.

-Hello.

-Hi.

-Hi.

-Hi, I'm Zena.

Ronnie was the only boy in a comfortably middle-class family.

His father worked as a clerk for an oil company.

Got a nice one here of Ronnie as a young boy.

That's just ridiculous, because that's Ronnie as an old man!

That's not Ronnie as a young boy!

That is Ronnie as an old man!

This is a nice one. I like this one.

This is showing the three generations of the Barker family.

We've got Ronnie and his dad, Leonard, and his grandfather.

That's the "I look up to him" sketch, isn't it?

-It is, actually, isn't it?

-Yeah.

I look down on him because I am upper class.

I look up to him because he is upper class.

But I look down on him because he is lower class.

I am middle class.

I know my place.

Well, they've certainly got an idea of how to pose for a photograph, haven't they?

Yeah, that's right, yeah.

-That is a performing family, isn't it?

-That's right.

-He looks considerably younger than he does in that photograph.

-Yeah, he does actually!

-It's true.

One of the things that Ronnie used to do

was stage little playlets in the garden.

He would write the script, they would rehearse.

They would create a stage using sort of blankets that they'd throw up over the clothes line.

And during little intervals, Ronnie's father would bring around strawberries,

they'd have sandwiches and lemonade.

It all seems very familiar to me.

I mean, the whole country is full of houses like this.

It's just a very... He obviously had a very sort of normal...

suburban upbringing, really.

I think it's a bit...

I'm interested in this idea of putting on plays in the garden

because...lots of kids put on plays

and lots of kids put on plays in the garden.

But this is a very, very, very open garden!

I should think you'd get about 20 houses, 20 complete families

watching your play. Takes a certain amount of showmanship, doesn't it?

To do that, I think.

On leaving school, Ronnie spent one unpromising term

in architectural college followed by a short stint as a bank clerk.

Looking for some fun outside of work,

he took up a friend's invitation to join

a local amateur dramatics group called The Theatre Players,

which performed in a church hall in Cowley.

Ooh.

Now...

HE CHUCKLES

-..it's got that classic smell of church hall, hasn't it, this?

-It has, yeah.

Ronnie made his debut in an Emlyn Williams play,

A Murder Has Been Arranged.

He played the musical director, so most of the time,

he had his back to the audience.

"A ghost story in three acts."

Now, he has to say, "Not now, Miss Groze.

"Pull yourself together."

So he gets the second line in the play,

he gets the fourth line in the play...and that's it.

-Doesn't reappear?

-Quite an interesting stage direction

in first line there, I noticed.

Oh. "He's a pleasant, matter-of-fact man,

-"the personification of the ordinary."

-Yeah.

But it wasn't long before people involved in The Theatre Players

realised that he was more than just an amateur actor.

So they suggested why didn't he try to become a professional actor.

-So he applied to the Old Vic Theatre School.

-Oh, did he?

He went up and intended to impress them with a speech from Richard III,

and it didn't go too well. And there's the uh...

"Dear Mr Barker, the results of your auditions have been considered

"and I'm sorry to inform you that your application

"for entry to the acting course has not been granted."

"Yours sincerely..."

That's not a particularly nice letter, is it?

-A bit cold, isn't it?

-Very, very sort of matter-of-fact.

-No real encouragement.

But it didn't put him off.

Butlins, now! "Thank you for your reply to my advertisement.

"I regret, however, that the situation has now been filled."

But Butlins Intimate Theatre in Felixstowe, that's...

Well, I wonder if that was the kind of thing

he would've wanted to do, really.

Mmm. I think he's just trying to find his break into the profession.

-Mmm.

-And then there's a another letter.

Oh, OK, so this is The County Theatre in Aylesbury.

The Manchester Repertory Company. And that's rather positive.

So they're saying, "Our producer, Mr Wentworth,

"will give you an interview regarding a possible vacancy

"if it will suit you. Yours sincerely..."

Ronnie had his first professional job in theatre.

Within a few years, he secured a place in the repertory company

he admired most - The Oxford Playhouse.

He had more than 100 credits to his name by the time

a young aspiring actress, Eileen Atkins, joined in 1954.

I was what they called an assistant stage manager...

-An ASM.

-ASM, yeah, at Oxford Rep.

And he was a leading member of the company,

and I was terribly impressed by him.

You know, he was somebody to really look up to.

But I am stunned to find out today,

to work it out that he was only five years older than me.

Because he seemed much older?

Yes, I thought of him as middle aged.

But of course, I now realise he used to ask me out for...

-It may have been more than just being nice to an ASM!

-Too late now, isn't it?

Far too late now. But he was very, very nice to me.

-So is that the Ronnie you recognise? Or is that...?

-Oh, yes.

This is the Ronnie I thought was a middle aged man!

BOTH LAUGH

He's quite attractive, isn't he?

-I thought he was the best actor in the company.

-Yeah.

He used to give me tips.

I remember one director being really violently rude to me.

But I was a waitress, and I only had one line like, "Here's your tea,"

something like that.

So, um, this man said to me "Oh, for God's sake, Eileen,

"you come on, you just look an idiot. Just get it right,"

without telling me what I'd done wrong.

-Mmm.

-And Ronnie came up to me and said, "Eileen, the thing is,

"you know how you're carrying the tray?"

I was carrying the tray up in the air on my hand like that

and I was sashaying on stage with it.

He said, "That's only in joke cartoons,

"that anyone carries a tray like that.

"Just bring the tray on like a real waitress."

This is Ronnie Barker's autobiography,

or at least the first part, called Dancing In The Moonlight.

He's talking about his third part in which he plays

-Charles the Chauffeur in a play called Miranda.

-Oh!

"On the first night I experienced my first real big laugh."

-Ah.

-"The sound of the audience on that Monday night all those years ago

"is as clear to me as if it were yesterday.

"The thrill that I experienced on hearing

"that most wonderful of sounds.

"I get goose pimples even now just thinking of it.

"'This is what I want to do,' I thought.

"'I want to make people laugh.

"'Never mind Hamlet, forget Richard II,

"'give me Charlie's Aunt.'

"My mission in life was now crystal clear."

Oh, how wonderful!

That first sort of wave of laughter coming off an audience

is simply addictive, I think. So once I'd started in Footlights,

if no-one had laughed I think that would've been it.

I think I would just have stopped and I would now be,

you know, marketing various different types of toiletry.

But someone did laugh, and that was enough, really.

Ronnie began to build a reputation as a comic actor.

His stage career took him to London, where he also landed

occasional roles in films...

That's a blazing strange answer, Sir.

..and radio shows like The Navy Lark.

'Oh, my 'ead! Oh, my poor little 'ead.

'There I was down at the blunt end trying to catch the big fella,

'then all of a sudden, bang! I caught a palm tree.'

He'd been acting for 15 years when, in 1966 the BBC offered him a part

in a new topical comedy show for television, The Frost Report.

I would like to protest against that word, "lost"

which kept on being used in the introduction which we heard.

-DEEP VOICE:

-You could save a little off...

-AUDIENCE LAUGHS

We could make some savings from a bit of waste and economies.

FEMALE VOICE: I'm only too...

AUDIENCE ROARS WITH LAUGHTER

Hello, Sheila. How are you?

The Frost Report was a proving ground for some of the best

new comedy talent.

I've had the feeling that there's someone else.

And it introduced Ronnie to his long-time performing partner,

Ronnie Corbett.

Who was that, darling?

It's over now. Don't let's talk about it.

Very occasionally, the sketches called for a woman.

Sheila Steafel played those roles.

I'd never done comedy before. Before that, I was a very straight actress.

You know where you are with comedy.

When you play straight stuff, how do you know it's working?

-Mmm.

-You know, you've got to kind of hope for the best,

and wait till someone comes backstage after the show and says,

"Darling, you were lovely." And you know they're lying.

I asked an agent once what you say if you go round

and you haven't enjoyed the play at all.

And he said, "What you do is you go 'wonderful isn't the word.'"

SHE LAUGHS

-A cracker, isn't it?

-I must remember that!

Gets you out of everything.

And did you know that Ronnie had done rep?

-Was that obvious, that he was sort of an actor?

-Yes.

Cos I'm sure he could have been a really excellent

serious character actor. He was, of course, he was marvellous.

He should've been at the RSC and the National.

But I think that he had a sense of humour about himself,

and kind of stood back.

I think of Ronnie that way, of being quietly observant and wry.

I think a lot of people are like that actually, aren't they?

That you don't ever quite feel yourself in the situation.

You're kind of watching yourself from a distance away.

-Yeah. Do you do that?

-I do that, yeah.

A lot of the time, I'm outside looking in

and thinking, "It'd be funny if he did that, wouldn't it?"

"Hmmm. Yeah. Let's make him do that." You know what I mean?

-Yes, I know exactly what you mean.

-It's an odd kind of thing, isn't it?

On your marks, set...

GUNSHOT

Possibly it was Ronnie's big break on television, wasn't it?

-Oh, yes.

-Is that fair?

-Yes. Absolutely.

-And for all you.

Because it became an immense sort of cultural event, didn't it?

Yes, it was.

When The Frost Report won the Golden Rose of Montreux

with Frost Over England, David Frost rushed over to pick up the prize.

And very thrilled, David was,

and gave speeches and took...hugged it and came back.

And Ronnie Barker had printed,

for the rest of the cast, certificates,

and also a little press release that he'd written on lovely

-tissue paper.

-Oh, look at that. This is proper.

-Yes.

"The Golden Rose Mysteries.

"Last night, police were still investigating

"the mysterious circumstances in which

"the Golden Rose Of Montreaux was carried off last month.

"Although international operator David Frost is known to be directly connected with the incident

"involving Europe's most prized possession,

"people in the know are beginning to suspect

"there were at least four other men involved,

"and possibly two women, according to some reports.

"Although there has been no mention in the press of these

"undercover men, it is now believed that they may have played

"quite a large part in the affair.

"These questions will have to be answered soon, otherwise Frost will

"have to carry the can for something he did not do on his own..."

SHE LAUGHS

-I think I'm beginning to understand the subtext!

-Ah!

-Yeah!

"...unless, of course, he volunteers the names of his henchmen to the authorities.

"Knowing Frosty, I don't think he will."

BOTH CHUCKLE

-Isn't that great?

-It's good, isn't it?

-What that a lovely thing to have.

-Yeah, absolutely.

Ronnie Barker started off quite obviously now in rep

and then working his way through

and being a comedy actor or just a straight actor, actually,

who had a gift for comedy, and then

kind of fell into radio comedy and The Frost Report

which was absolutely sort of cutting-edge comedy.

Our next round is called Newsreel. We play a recent piece of footage featuring people in the news

and ask Hugh to suggest what might be being said. This week's clip features David Cameron.

If there are any parallels to be drawn between my career and

Ronnie Barker's career, it's that I sort of did the same thing, really.

I kind of always thought of myself really as a comedy actor

but who has ended up doing Mock The Week

and The Now Show which are both, you know, weekly topical shows.

AS DAVID CAMERON: "You'll enjoy this, look at that.

"That's one of our riots. Yes, it's Croydon..." LAUGHTER

"..but it could be Kabul. Yes."

AMERICAN ACCENT: "Hey, big fella.

"Merry Christmas, how was your year?" "Well, it wasn't bad actually."

"I'll tell you a highlight of mine.

"I personally tracked down and killed the world's most wanted man, Osama bin Laden, yep.

"There's no footage released because I did it on my own. Yeah, I did.

"It's all me. Bang, I got him. I got him. Yup, that's me."

Thank you, Hugh.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

OK, Harry?

In 1967, David Frost moved his show to ITV

and it became Frost On Sunday.

Mmm-moo-mooo, mooo

moooz, mew, mooz

moo...mmm-mew-mew

AUDIENCE LAUGHS

..mew, muse-mew-music. Music.

Man who's just learned to read music.

In addition to performing,

Ronnie now began secretly to write sketches.

It's well-known in comedy circles today that Ronnie

submitted his sketches under the pseudonym, Gerald Wiley.

Why do you think he didn't own up to it in the first place?

Well, it's a bit... I can understand why. I'm sure you can.

It would've put him in a very awkward position,

being the only member of the cast writing.

Kind of, but it also says something of his sort of, um...

It seems to be a sort of innate modesty.

-Yes.

-Doesn't it?

-Absolutely.

You're much more likely to get a genuine judgement on your script,

-if you send it in as...

-Absolutely, yeah.

I suppose it was the third week I did one

and the editor came in, the script editor, and said,

"Wiley's dropped a clanger this week. Load of rubbish," he said.

"Is it really? Let's look." I read it through.

I said, "Yes, absolutely hopeless. Chuck it out."

We chucked it out, which means that it worked.

For me, that worked.

Whether it's lack of confidence or modesty,

whatever it is, it's a great, great story, isn't it?

That you send in sketches and then you don't admit

that you've done them.

-DIRECTOR:

-Standby.

-Are we going to go right ahead, Sir?

-Yes, if you're happy, Sir.

If I'm happy.

Ronnie finally did reveal to his colleagues

that he was the writer Gerald Wiley.

Sketch has been cut, Ronnie, it's out. Joe says...

Phil says there's not enough time.

But he continued to use the pseudonym for years to come,

long after the secret was out.

-You were saying?

-I was saying raspberry, I think. Raspberry.

Never mind the raspberry, it's been cut. The sketch is cut, we're not doing it... I'm sorry.

-And you must be...?

-Walter.

Frost On Sunday lasted for two series,

during which audiences and critics alike recognised the brilliant

pairing of Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett.

I don't want a sweater.

I moved slowly into the outside lane and then just as I was about to...

We have exactly the same sense of humour.

We don't even have to ask each other whether a line is funny...

Well, you DO. You say, "So what should we cut here? That line?

"Yes, that's out. And that's out. That's good, yes, that's fine.

"And then we'll cut down to here..." We are identical.

Five, four, three...

The Ronnies were so popular together that in 1971,

the BBC gave them a series of their own.

THEME MUSIC AND APPLAUSE

Thank you, good evening and welcome to the show.

-I must say it's very nice to be with you all. Isn't it?

-It is.

-It's very nice to be with you.

-Thank you, Ron. Yes, lovely to see you all...

The Two Ronnies ran for 15 years,

packed full of sketches by Gerald Wiley

and watched by as many as 15 million people an episode.

Hugh has come to the Victoria And Albert Museum Archives

to look through their collection of Ronnie's scripts.

Now this...

These are Gerald Wiley's sketches.

"Hear, hear.

"Is the hearing aid centre?" "Pardon?"

"Is this the hearing aid centre?" "Yes, that's right."

"I've come to be fitted for a hearing aid."

"Pardon?" It's just...

I think you get it now!

And on and on!

Oh, I loved those sketches. The Morris Dancers. Oh, excellent.

Fabulous.

So is this written by...

Gerald Wiley wrote and choreographed the Morris Dancers?

Ronnie did more than write the lines.

He also laid out the staging in meticulous detail.

"The eight performers dance on.

"They circle around in pairs and we super a caption -

"'Due to illness, Arthur Clump's place will be taken by his sister.'"

Incredible diagrams of how it works. Good grief.

"Get lost, get lost, get lost, get lost..."

-# Get lost

-# Get lost

-ALL:

-# Get lost, get lost, Get lost among the new mown hay...

So doff, so doff...

# Sod off, sod off

# So doff your hat, I pray. #

Classic Two Ronnies.

-Good evening.

-"Good evening."

You just knew - he used to come on, didn't he?

It was a sort of a white background, wasn't it? Just him,

and you knew you were going to get this spectacular sort of wordplay.

I am the president of the Loyal Society For The Relief Of Sufferers From Pispronunciation.

"For people who cannot say their worms correctly or who use

"the wrong worms entirely so that other people cannot underhand

"a bird they are spraying."

It's just that you open your mouth and the worms...

"The worms come tumbling-turbling out in wuk a say

"that you dick not what you're thugging a bing."

..in wuk a say that you dick not what you're thugging a bing.

And it's very distressing.

I'm always lewing it and it makes one feel unbumfortacacle.

"You see how dicky felt it is. But help is at hand.

"A new society has been formed by our mumblers to

"help each other in times of excreme ices.

"It's..." HE CHUCKLES

"It is bald pismonouncers un-unanimous..." Good grief!

Write to me, Dr Small Pith,

The Spanner, Poke Noses

and I will send you some brieflets to browse through

and a brass badge to wear in your loophole.

And a very quid night to you all.

APPLAUSE

Brilliantly written.

I remember that sketch.

He did it, I might say, considerably better than I did.

That terrifies me.

It's the thought of actually having to do it in one go.

I just loved the...

I loved the sort of contrivance of it, I think.

This great sort of British tradition of just

mucking about with...with words.

"An ironmongers." Ooh 'ello.

Oh, this is Four Candles, is it?

Yeah, this is a classic, um, this is it...so, "Annie Finkhouse."

"Anyfink else?"

Four candles.

Four candles? There you are. Four candles.

No, four candles.

Well, there you are, four candles.

No, fork handles. Handles for forks.

AUDIENCE LAUGHS

Lovely, lovely!

-"What else? "Saw tips."

-Saw tips.

Saw tips?

AUDIENCE LAUGHS

What do you want, ointment or something like that? What do you mean?

It's such a great sketch.

I think it's amazing that all the sketches that I...you know,

the kind of signature sketches of The Two Ronnies

were all written by Ronnie Barker, which is astonishing.

In 1974, at the same time as The Two Ronnies, Ronnie Barker took

the role of Norman Stanley Fletcher in a new sitcom.

DOORS SLAM

Porridge is considered by many

to be the greatest British sitcom of all time.

Hugh's meeting Christopher Biggins, who got to know Ronnie

while playing the character, Lukewarm.

In that opening sequence, though, so when the door shuts

and you get the voice which just goes, "Norman Stanley Fletcher..."

'Norman Stanley Fletcher,

'you have pleaded guilty to the charges brought by this court

'and it is now my duty to pass sentence.'

That is obviously the voice of Ronnie Barker.

-That IS the voice of Ronnie Barker.

-Which has always struck me as a bit of BBC cost-saving.

-Ha ha ha!

Well, he was so talented Ronnie, you see, he could do anything.

-So you were basically playing a gay man, weren't you, in Porridge?

-Yes.

Now, did the depiction of it ever worry you?

I mean, because in The Two Ronnies, it's very non-PC sometimes.

No, I mean, it was...

-In 1974 too, it was quite brave to have a gay character.

-Mmm.

Oooh, some girls have all the luck!

I want you to copy out these letters in your own handwriting.

'There was a wonderful scene where Ronnie wrote letters

'to all the wives and girlfriends. The same letter to everybody.'

Don't forget to put the names of your loved one at the top

like "My beloved Iris".

That's it. "My darling Norma."

"My dearest Trevor." All right?

LAUGHTER

Of course, there was a moment on the bus when they were all

going to visit, they realised they all had the same letter

and there was a cutaway to my boyfriend

who'd never been seen before and he was reacting as well,

and it got the most wonderful laugh.

I mean, it was fantastic.

Television audiences knew Ronnie as a virtuoso of sketch comedy.

Porridge was the first time they got to see him really act.

Oh, all right. I won't say no, son.

It's meant as a thank you.

Ronnie's friendship with the young actor Richard Beckinsale

mirrored the script.

Ronnie and he were like father and son.

I mean, to watch in rehearsal, in the studio, on television,

I think it's probably one of the finest combinations

that you're ever likely to see.

I know, it was an absolutely tremendous combination.

It really was.

You'll get used to it, son.

I mean, a night ain't all that long, is it?

It's just your human spirit, you see.

That's what they can't grind down, your human spirit.

-'It's timeless, Porridge, isn't it?

-It is.'

-You don't go outside.

-No.

-So you're not, sort of, aware of the world?

-No, exactly.

# Born free. #

It's all interiors pretty much, isn't it, or down on the farm?

Absolutely, or in the coal cellar.

I remember that. We were all playing cards and they put the coal in.

Do you know what it made me want to do, in a way?

I'm not sure whether this is good or bad.

It almost made me want to go to prison.

BIGGINS LAUGHS

-Cos it looked like a really good place to be.

-I know!

I think unfortunately we did paint that wrong picture.

One, bide your time.

Two, keep your nose clean.

And three, don't let the bastards grind you down.

Oh, sorry.

As popular as it was, Porridge only ran for three series.

I think, you know, people go on and on and on doing a situation comedy

and it gets really boring.

-I think, you know, Outnumbered should stop now.

-Yeah.

HE LAUGHS

I'll tell you what,

let's see if we can get one more series out of that.

For all his appearances on television,

Ronnie was also everywhere behind the scenes.

DIRECTOR: Shot 52, take 1.

Television Centre in London was then the heart of BBC Entertainment.

While other stars and producers mingled in the BBC Club, Ronnie

spent his spare hours in windowless cutting rooms and sound studios.

Hugh's come to meet one of Ronnie's most long-standing collaborators

who first worked with him in 1966 -

film editor, Ray Millichope.

The Frost Report is when he picked up his first irritating habit.

-I didn't know the man...

-His FIRST irritating habit?!

He would take off bits of film and put them back on the wrong peg.

-Oh, no.

-Over the years I did explain to him that it was important

to put the trims back on the correct peg.

Or the programme would be in the wrong order.

Yes, and I had 30 years of this.

But he did improve as he went on.

He said to me that if he wasn't Ronnie Barker

he'd like to be a film editor.

He decided that he'd like to spend three or four days with me a week.

He became my assistant.

So was he just interested in the process of doing it?

Was he one of those people who was interested in everything?

He was interested in everything.

-And did he physically do the cutting?

-No, he didn't.

But he would do rewinding,

and he would answer the phone occasionally.

-As Ronnie Barker?

-Yes.

He used to sit there in his short-sleeve shirt.

-Always wore a short-sleeve shirt.

-He seems to be a very ordinary man.

I once said he is Marks and Spencer's.

He was Marks and Spencer's. He was quite happy with all that.

And if we had, for instance, overnight prints to be picked up at the lab,

his car from the Centre would call into dispatch,

he'd go in dispatch, pick up the rushes,

and sometimes we'd get a call from dispatch saying that

Ronnie Barker's been in, he's had a cup of tea, signed autographs

and he's on his way up to you, and he would come in with the rushes.

How fantastic.

A highlight in each episode of The Two Ronnies

was the spoof film feature.

This was The Worm That Turned. I don't know what series this was.

It began with "The Worm That Turned," didn't it?

That's right, yes.

THEME MUSIC PLAYS

He always walked about with this dreadful brown suitcase,

which was the Barker sound effects library.

He used to have...

This was his favourite.

-A football rattle?

-Yeah.

I never knew what a Swanee whistle was until I met Ronnie Barker.

That's a classic.

Everything in The Two Ronnies revolved around the Swanee whistle.

But, I mean, there was also saucepans

and on one occasion he came in with a cabbage.

And when I asked him,

"Ron, there's a cabbage in the suitcase, what's it for?"

He smashed it on the ground and he said,

"If we record that it sounds like someone's being banged on the head."

Well...

But you see, you have to realise that Ealing studios,

they all had a full complement of effects.

-They had everything you could wish for.

-On tape?

On tape, but he would walk in with this suitcase.

This is the cabbage,

or something like that or an apple or something like that,

that he would carry with him.

Ronnie's sound effects turned up again and again in the film spoofs.

-They always went in the middle of a show, didn't they?

-Yes.

So there was that

and there was The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town.

Most of the effects in the Barker library

were for The Phantom Raspberry Blower.

Speaks for itself, doesn't it, really?

Is there a message I may give to the Prime Minister-er-er?

Yes, tell him this.

RASPBERRY BLOWS

Who blew the raspberry?

Oh, Mr Barker would have done that.

I think so, yes, I think so.

He would have created that sound.

It's interesting, though, because you sort of assume that,

at that kind of level that,

you know, he'd be off playing golf,

but he seems not to have been.

He just seems to have been fascinated by everything.

It's great, I think.

And do you think he was ever kind of tempted to be a producer, actually?

Yeah, sometimes you wondered if he was!

When not at work, Ronnie was an avid collector of antique postcards.

We used to write to each other.

If I found something in the newspaper that was funny

I'd send it to him and I'd get a prize.

"Dear Ray. I'm happy to tell you your newspaper cutting,

"which nearly made me have a fit and practically gave me a hernia,

"has won you this week's star prize.

"Thanks so much and best wishes to all at the fun factory."

This was the prize, see.

So this is his Book of Bathing Beauties?

I think I've got three of those now.

-And these were all postcards from his own collection?

-Hmmm.

So this is literally just a history of bathing beauties.

It's an odd book to do, isn't it?

My own personal feeling about this book is

he should never have done it.

I think it's bad taste, I really do.

Hugh wants to understand Ronnie's keen interest in saucy postcards.

Ronnie's collection was eventually sold,

but Cartoon Museum curator Anita O'Brien has gathered his books

as well as cards by the same artists that Ronnie collected.

Lots of naked ladies.

Lots of naked ladies, yes,

and ladies reclining or, um...

What is that lady doing there?

She seems to be re-glazing a window naked.

What's going on?

"Outdoor repairs. Watch out for splinters."

Yeah, well, that's good advice but not as good advice as

put some clothes on before going outside to repair a window.

Ronnie was also interested in the naughty kind of cards.

The ones where you've got the caption and the image

and there's a bit of double entendre and so on.

"Here's a lovely pair every woman ought to have."

-Yeah.

-It's all in the gaze, isn't it?

-So she's looking demurely down.

-And so is he, but...

Yeah, but at something different. That's it.

And also this, "Very hot weekend in view down by the seaside."

Yes, exactly. A man looking directly at a woman's posterior.

Yes, but a very shapely one.

Yeah. That's an absolutely extraordinary card.

"I will give you a stick of rock, cock!"

It's unbelievable, isn't it?

Good grief.

It feels a bit strange that someone who was sort of such

a national kind of institution

and such a wordsmith

and all those really clever things that I loved about Ronnie Barker

would have a collection of,

you know, slightly sexist postcards.

I think there's something very British about it,

if you think of the Carry On films.

-Yeah, exactly. Well, they were exactly that, weren't they?

-Yeah.

This kind of suggestive humour is perhaps difficult to enjoy today.

But innuendo was as much a part of Ronnie's comedy as wordplay

and he gave it full expression by writing a film which brought

the seaside postcard to life.

-I believe my DVD drive is warming up.

-Is it?

That's not a euphemism. That's actually what's happening.

In 1982, Ronnie's labour of love, By The Sea,

was shown on BBC television.

It's odd, though, you know, in that it lacks words,

-which is what I mostly associate with Ronnie Barker.

-Mmm.

Well, I suppose that's the thing about a lot of the comedy.

That people could enjoy it on different levels.

There was the physical comedy

and there was the innuendo.

It's interesting,

that guy there is the character played by Ronnie Barker.

Definitely. Even with the hat and the moustache.

Yeah, he's got a monocle?

This is the point at which this kind of comedy stops, though, I think.

It's a rather interesting historical moment,

because you've been able to do this kind of comedy, haven't you, since...?

Probably early 1900s.

So it's had, you know, it's had 84 years, and this is the moment.

Mmm.

So while this is happening, all this kind of, girls bending over

and men kind of going like that,

was on at the same time as The Young Ones.

The 1980s saw the rise of alternative comedy.

Even mindless violence seems boring today.

The anarchic performances of comics like Ben Elton and Alexei Sayle

had no room for the saucy innuendo that featured in Ronnie's shows.

Screw you, you complacent, misogynistic bum splat!

I've just received an unexpected flash.

How much longer do you think The Two Ronnies can run?

I don't know. Six, seven, eight...

..days.

Ronnie remained hugely popular,

and had a second great sitcom success starring in Open All Hours

with Lynda Baron and David Jason.

How do you manage to do your laundry every week

with clapped out stuff like that?

-It's easy.

-How can it be easy?

He does it.

Oh, the poor lad. You must be a blight on his adolescence.

Hey, G-G-Granville, come out of there at once!

For his next sitcom, in 1988, Ronnie revived a character, Clarence,

that he'd played 16 years earlier opposite actress Josephine Tewson.

We'd done a little half-hour play,

which was about this short-sighted removal man

and the maid of the household.

And we'd done that and he said,

"I've always thought that would make a nice series."

He's a funny bloke, Clarence.

Blind as a bat and clumsy as a bull in a china shop.

Under the pseudonym Bob Ferris, Ronnie wrote the script.

He said, "Are you doing anything in June?"

So I immediately decided no, I wasn't.

And he said, "I'd better warn you, when I've finished doing that series

"I'm going to leave the profession."

I said, "What do you mean? Are you ill?"

"No, no, no, no, no. I'm just going to, you know, stop."

"What do you mean? Suppose they want to do another series?"

"No, no, just going to do that one series."

But he said, "You mustn't tell anyone.

"I've told Ronnie Corbett, I've told the BBC, and I'm telling you,

"but you mustn't say anything because I don't want it to get out."

And I thought somebody would persuade him to carry on.

But they couldn't and he didn't and he was perfectly happy giving up,

he really was.

So when Clarence was on, which was the late '80s,

which was when I was starting out, really,

telly was changing very, very rapidly, really, wasn't it?

Do you think that affected Ronnie's decision?

-Do you think he felt that his time had gone?

-I don't think so.

He may not have liked what he saw.

I don't know, I really don't know about that.

I do find the desire to retire quite interesting, actually.

-Most actors have no desire to retire at all, do they?

-None at all.

It's one of the great things, is you can just keep on going.

Yes, you can, and you'll find, eventually, it retires you.

You don't have to do anything about it yourself.

It'll happen in the normal, ordinary course of events, I find.

How long do you think you have to be out of work for the penny to drop?

To realise? I don't know!

In his retirement, Ronnie joined his wife Joy running an antiques shop.

If you didn't know that it was Ronnie Barker's shop

and you walk into a shop and there is Ronnie Barker behind the counter...

-I know.

-..you assume it's some kind of a set-up of some sort, don't you?

Yeah, but I think he liked chatting to people in the shop.

I think he just liked family life, he really did.

It's why actors and comedians are so lucky, really, because they get

to spend their lives, mainly, doing stuff that they really like.

It's not drudgery being on the telly

and going out on a Saturday night to 15 million people.

It's fantastic, isn't it?

And just...

to stop is, I would have thought is really, really difficult.

But good.

Well done 'im.

"Your days as a big..."

Is that an O or an I?

An O.

"Your days as a big shot are numbered."

16 years after he retired,

BAFTA honoured Ronnie with a lifetime achievement award.

So duly deserved, this BAFTA,

goes to my dear friend, the guvnor.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the man himself,

Mr Ronnie Barker!

APPLAUSE

Standing here before you with this most honoured award

bestowed upon me by you, what luck.

What wonderful luck to be flanked on either side by my two best friends.

APPLAUSE

And I might cry.

Gwyneth Paltrow, watch out.

LAUGHTER

Thank you very much.

APPLAUSE

Ronnie appeared on television for the final time, behind a desk

with Ronnie Corbett, introducing a collection of old sketches.

Actually, Ron, after nearly 40 years,

we are rather like Christmas, in fact, aren't we?

I know what you mean, yes.

Just like holly, we've grown a bit prickly.

Just like the paper chains, getting a bit droopy.

Just like Christmas lights, we're on the blink.

And only turned on once a year.

Speak for yourself!

The programme was shown at Christmas in 2005,

two months after Ronnie died from heart failure.

MUSIC: "A Rainy Day Refrain" by The Andrews Sisters.

# Da-dim, da-dum, da-dim, da-dum Da-dim, da-dum, da-dim, da-dum

# I'm dreaming to the rhythm of the rain

# Da-dim, da-dum, da-dim, da-dum

# I get the sweetest memories from the rhythm of a rainy day refrain. #

Ronnie's memorial service took place at Westminster Abbey.

Josephine Tewson read one of the lessons.

The one thing I didn't realise, when they come up

they always process up, the choir and everybody, with two candles.

And that day they had four candles.

-Oh, how fantastic!

-Yes.

I mean, it is given to sadness and poignancy and all the rest of it

-but half of comedy is finding...

-Funny things happening at funerals!

Yeah, funny things happening at funerals, yeah.

-And Ronnie would have been the first to write it, too.

-Yeah.

# Da-dim, da-dum, da-dim, da-dum Da-dim, da-dum, da-dim, da-dum

# I'm so in love I'll always love the rain. #

So, this is Aylesbury.

This is where Ronnie Barker's career began at Aylesbury Rep,

and behind us is Aylesbury Theatre now.

And over here,

I believe that is a statue of Ronnie Barker.

In the guise, I think, of Norman Stanley Fletcher.

He's escaped from prison and he's ended up in Aylesbury.

Here we go.

"Ronnie Barker first performed professionally in 1948

"at the old County Theatre in Market Square, Aylesbury."

Well, he liked being matter-of-fact.

He wasn't showbiz.

So I guess it is rather fitting that he is now

sitting between a construction site

and the A41.

I've had greatness thrust upon me.

I knew very, very little about him when I started,

other than what I'd seen on screen.

I didn't know really that he was an actor.

He was really an actor even when he was being a comedian.

But what I really have liked about it

is the discovery that he was,

you know, he was enormously famous,

but he was kind of accidentally famous.

You know, it was all a by-product

of doing a thing that he loved doing.

He was just interested in

making people laugh

and getting the very best out of every show he was in, really.

I rather admire that, you know.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd