The Two Ronnies Talking Comedy

With the Two Ronnies, size mattered.

Together, big Ronnie Barker and little Ronnie Corbett

were amongst TV's biggest stars in the 1970s and '80s,

with big shows that got very big ratings.

They had a magic, audience-pleasing formula.

There were always the joke news reports,

some wordplay from Ronnie B, a monologue from Ronnie C,

a comedy song and a goodnight from me and a goodnight from him.

Much of that classic material was written by Ronnie Barker himself,

which is something we see him talk about

in this encounter with Michael Parkinson.

A quote for you - "Wildly berserk, a coordinated clown,

"expressively bizarre - that's how it comes across on the screen.

"But it's all rather like the sober clerk

"getting tiddly at the office party.

"Away from his disguises, he's almost indecently normal,

"bland, innocuous and polite."

End of quote. Here tonight, minus disguises, Ronnie Barker!

APPLAUSE

-Indecently normal?

-What?

-Indecently normal.

-Yes.

Or normally indecent.

But indecently normal? Yes, I'm very normal, yes.

Almost to the point of indecency, yes. Yes, I'm married with a wife.

Well, you have to. If you're married, you have to have a wife.

-Absolutely.

-And I've got three children -

one of each.

-And I live in a house with four walls and two roofs.

-Two roofs?

-Yes.

-There's one...and the other one's over the house.

-But are you...?

-Yes, I like this.

-You like it?

-Wall-to-ceiling carpet.

-Part of the BBC's economy drive.

-It's very nice.

-Do you, in fact...

I mean, I took that quote out of context, in a sense,

but the sense of all the articles that one reads about you

is that in fact you are a shy man, normally - is that so?

Er... I'm shy when there are more than three people in the room.

Um...

No, I... Yes, I can't...

I can't even be a best man at a wedding, for instance.

I can't make speeches.

I'm always, obviously, getting letters that say,

"Will you make a speech?"

I'm very shy. I'm shy at the moment.

I once tried to open a fete...

..and tried to make a speech to open a fete - and I just couldn't...

The fete just wouldn't open.

I mean, that's extraordinary, you see -

because how on earth do you appear in public?

I mean, how do you appear on television, for instance?

I'm always wondering. It's luck, I suppose.

No, I have to hide behind the character, really.

I can't be myself.

I feel I have no personality,

so I pull on a character, you know?

Put on a moustache and a voice...

You literally disguise yourself and feel quite comfortable?

Oh, yes - I'm fine, doing that.

You are also a writer too, of course.

I mean, you've written some very, very good stuff.

-Very good comedy material.

-Thank you.

Has that ever been affected by your shyness at all?

-Have you ever been too shy to reveal yourself as a writer?

-Oh, yes.

When I first started writing seriously, I think, for...

I mean, comic-serious - seriously started writing comedy,

if that makes sense...

in Frost On Sunday, which I'm afraid was on the other side...

but we soon brought it over here and called it The Frost Report, or was it the other way round?

Anyway, I started writing in Frost On Sunday,

but I didn't want to present Ronnie Corbett and the director

with a sketch and they had to say

"That's very good, very nice" - when it was awful.

So I wanted a sketch - if it got on - to be done under its own merits.

And so, I wrote...

I called myself "Gerald Wiley"

and sent in a sketch from my agent.

I got him to farm it in, said it was some strange recluse

who lived in the country and wrote novels,

but he thought he'd like to try his hand at writing sketches.

And luckily, they loved them, for the first two weeks.

And...

No, we did them and they said, "Great new find, Gerald Wiley."

I said, "Yes, very good, very good"

and pretended not to understand parts of them.

"What does this mean here?"

And then, 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.

I said, "Is it really? Let's have a look" and read it through and said,

"Oh, yes. Absolutely hopeless. Chuck it out." We chucked it out.

Which means...that it worked. For me, that worked.

That was just what I wanted, so that if I thought I'd written a good sketch

and other people didn't think so, then they threw it out.

And your disguise was complete?

Yes - and I kept it hidden for a long time.

All right, but how long did it...

How, in fact, was the secret discovered?

I wrote a sketch about the doctor's waiting room

and Ronnie Corbett loved it. It was all...

I had three lines in it, it featured Ronnie, who came into

a doctor's waiting room and no-one would talk to him - as people don't talk.

He said, hello, good morning, good morning - and no-one said anything.

So he started reading funny bits out of the paper and no-one laughed.

So then he sang a little song - he stood up and sang a song,

then he did a full Fred Astaire all over the table. Nobody noticed.

He finished this great thing and suddenly got a round of applause.

It was a sketch like that and everyone in the waiting room

eventually joined in, all sang a song.

So he loved this and he said, "I'd like to buy this from Gerald Wiley."

I said, "Why don't you ring up the agent and see what he wants for it?"

So I rang my agent quickly and said, "Ask him 250 quid for it."

-That was a very friendly thing to do!

-Yes, quite.

That was before inflation, that was -

when you could get three pennyworth of chips

and still get change from sixpence.

Work that out. Takes a bit of time.

Anyway, I said "Ask 250 quid".

So he rang up and said, "He wants 250 quid."

He came and told me. Ronnie said, "He wants £250 for it!"

I said, "Don't pay it. It's rubbish."

LAUGHTER

Because I knew I was going to give him the sketch later on, you see?

So he rang up and said "No, I'm not going to have that."

So eventually, I asked my agent to say,

Gerald Wiley would like to give Ronnie Corbett the sketch,

because he appreciates all he's done -

the performances in the previous sketches.

So Ronnie says, "He's given it to me free. Oh, I must do something.

"I must go out and buy him a present."

So he rushed out and bought six beautiful crystal glasses

and presented them to me, just on the last day.

But he didn't present them to me,

he left them at reception for Gerald Wiley

and then we all revealed it all

and I said, "Thanks very much for the glasses" and took them away.

And he was... He didn't know what to do!

That was a fairly large serving of Ronnie Barker there,

so now let us treat ourselves to a little helping of Ronnie Corbett,

talking again to Michael Parkinson.

APPLAUSE

-How are you?

-Thank you very much.

Well, I'm a little bit nervous, but...

I must say, it was very, very encouraging,

because as I walked on just now, a little bit nervous and tentative,

a lady over there... I heard her say,

"Doesn't he remind you of Clint Eastwood?" It was very nice.

LAUGHTER

Made me relax.

In fact, that's the first question I wanted to ask you.

Do you use humour as a defence against your size?

I suppose...

I suppose, in order to make other people feel comfortable

and make them feel that I'm not worrying about it.

I naturally go to it...for succour.

I mean, I grab at it, to...

I suppose it is. Yes, I suppose it is.

When did you first realise, in fact,

that you were smaller than other people?

LAUGHTER

That's a very good question, because...

-it is a very good question!

-It is excellent, of course.

I thought long and hard before I put it down.

Well, actually, I suppose...my wedding day.

LAUGHTER

No, no!

The vicar shoved my head in the font and said,

-"I name this child Ronnie Corbett!"

-LAUGHTER

No, because my wife and I...

My wife and I actually met in the hall of mirrors and...

LAUGHTER

..she thought I was seven foot six.

No, I suppose seriously, when everybody else was sprouting up

at the age of 13 and 14 and going into long trousers,

I realised I wasn't and...

Going into long trousers?

..I wasn't sprouting up or going into long trousers.

And that was when it began to...

Did anybody ever try to increase your height at all?

Well, I had an aunt who was kind of anxious

to get me to be a little taller and she sent away for a course,

a two guinea course -

which didn't work -

and I used to have to stick pins in the wall every morning and say,

"Everyday and in every way, I am getting taller and taller.

I obviously didn't say it with much conviction.

LAUGHTER

Let's talk about the development of your style.

How did this style, best described as "wandering monologue",

that you have now - how did that develop?

Well, that really developed because before the BBC days,

Ronnie and I were at London Weekend, we did some shows there.

I did a show on Saturday night called The Corbett Follies,

which was a big glamorous show with tall showgirls -

a variety show, really -

and I used to do monologue and I used to, by accident,

get lost in it and try to fumble my way out.

And one day, Spike Mullins...

spoke to me in the canteen at London Weekend and said,

"I've been watching you fumbling your way through these monologues

"to some effect, but I think that I could write them - the fumbles -

"better than you do them by accident",

which was fairly obvious, I would have thought.

And so, Spike started writing...

the digressing monologues...

and they're now written by David Renwick,

who copies the style that Spike had written

and that's how it really evolved.

A bit from me and a bit from Spike, working in that way.

I do cabaret and I do...

I very much enjoy the feeling of talking

as though something is not written and therefore losing my way

and seeming to be picking it out of the air, you know?

Yes, yes.

That appeals to me, that putting it together -

weaving it like a little bit of lace,

-from putting it in a lot of jokes into making it prose, really.

-Right.

-Do you have an example ready?

-Well, er...

It's a question of creeping into it, so that people...

When I arrived, for example, at the studio tonight...

and I parked the car and Bert the doorman was there - you know Bert?

Ha. A man of many parts...

..which nobody's ever seen, because he's a bachelor...

LAUGHTER

But anyway, I handed...

I handed him... I went up...

LAUGHTER

That's Bert, yes!

He's got fewer parts than I thought!

LAUGHTER

I went to reception, I got my key from the lady, the receptionist -

a very forbidding lady with her hair in a bun

and her nose in a cheese sandwich.

LAUGHTER

And as I...

As I left the reception, the vicar was leaving -

presumably from having recorded The Epilogue or something, I don't know.

I got the dressing room and as I opened the dressing room,

it was in a terrible mess

and I thought it was some previous fool,

whoever was in it yesterday hadn't...

Anyway, as I thought, shall I complain?

I thought, no, I shall think of the vicar having left

and I'll tell tonight,

when Michael asks me,

a religious story.

I thought because, as you all probably know,

today is the last Thursday before...

The last Saturday, sorry...

before... before Sunday.

Now, I know that sounds...

rather like a pathetic excuse to tell an old joke -

and that's exactly what it is, because this joke needs an excuse

and if I could have thought of a better one, I would have done so.

Actually, to be honest,

I found this story in an old copy of the Radio Times.

I was browsing through it,

looking at a picture of Patrick Moore in Sky At Night...

wondering what it must be like to put your suit on with a shovel...

-Now, I...

-APPLAUSE

My old dad used to say to me,

he used to say to me, "Remember, Ron..."

He had a wonderful memory for names, my dad...

"Remember, Ron..."

He had a habit of repeating himself, as well.

He said, "Remember, Ron - always remember, the show must go on."

Now, he was 40 years a centre lathe turner,

so I don't know why he troubled to mention it, but he did, so there.

Anyway, the joke. This is about two vicars who meet in the street

and one of them says to the other, he says, "Woe is me. Woe is me -

"some thieving parishioner has made off with my bike

"and from now on, it looks like

"Shanks's pony for ever and ever, etc, etc."

Or words to that effect.

He didn't say "etc, etc", I said that.

I didn't want to say everything the vicar said, otherwise I'd be here...

..and the story would go on forever.

"Good heavens", said his friend,

lapsing into the professional jargon.

By the way, please don't think I am knocking anyone's religion.

I wouldn't do that, believe me.

I can't wait to see the Pope catch up with Dave Allen.

That'll cure his dandruff. Anyway, I...

-LAUGHTER The Pope's?

-The Pope's?

Oh, no. Dave Allen's. Well, both of them, perhaps.

Anyway, these two vicars are talking about how one of them

had his bike stolen, you see?

"Woe is me", says the one whose bike it was.

"Yea, woe is you", said his friend.

He said, "What about the local police?"

"Oh, I've thought about them,

"but I don't want to accuse anybody until I'm absolutely sure."

Then his friend said, "I have an idea -

"next Saturday, get up there

"and give them the full ten Commandments -

"and when you get to 'thou shalt not steal',

"have a look for the red face -

"and that will be the one who purloined your velocipede."

Now, I have....

I have a great temptation here to tell you the story about

-when Moses was in the desert...

-No, don't...

One of them said, "How did you get on about your bike?"

Now, we're getting near the end.

"Did the ten Commandments idea work?" he said.

And the other vicar said, "Yes, it worked marvellously.

"When I got to 'thou shalt not commit adultery',

-"I remembered where I'd left it."

-LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

While Ronnie Corbett had his monologues,

Ronnie Barker worked wonders with vocabulary.

Whether it was a spoonerism or a double entendre,

he loved mixing words up and messing with their meanings.

You've just come back from a place where I've just returned from,

-Australia...

-Camerontown...oh, Australia.

-Yes.

-Yes, yes.

-Did you have a good time there?

-Lovely place.

-Did you love it?

-I adored it.

-I adored it, it was beautiful.

-Sydney, I was staying in Sydney. Were you?

-Yes.

-Beautiful.

-You fell in love with Sydney?

-I did, indeed.

-Does your wife know?

-Oh, my God.

-Oh, here we go.

No, no.

-I... I thought it was lovely.

-What about Adelaide?

-What?

-Did you fall in love with Adelaide?

-No, I never got as far as her.

Did you have a moment when you knew exactly, the moment on stage

when you knew that you could act.

-When you knew could do it.

-Do it...yes.

-Act.

That was under the stage, actually, but we won't talk about that.

No. No, no, no. I don't think I could put my finger on it, as they say.

No, please...

-Was it onstage or under the stage?

-No, I don't think I...

I think it was a gradual thing, I found that they kept giving me

comedy parts and that's what I liked. And I liked that.

You know I still, you still love the thrill of a really big laugh.

It's still there, that's what makes you keep doing it.

Let's move on to the present time

because of the Two Ronnies, which is incredibly successful.

And I suppose next to, alongside Eric and Ernie,

you two, the Two Ronnies are the best-known

and most popular comedians that we have in this country.

-So far.

-So far, yes. But what about the...?

The one thing that characterises, in fact,

the show is the love you have for words. For wordplay.

Yes, I do love words. Yes, I do. I'm always thinking of...

I always think in terms of words. I'm not a visual man, you know.

I mean, I'm always thinking of words not only in, on the show

but you know, here and now.

Like, I love thinking of people's names backwards, you know.

We've got the lovely lady Miss Streep who's coming on, she's, she's...

I've forgotten what she is, backwards. What is she backwards?

Peer-peer-peert. She's Miss Peert.

-And then you've got Nottingnob, coming on.

-Nottingnob?

-Yes.

-That's Chris Bonington.

-Chris Bonington, yes.

And of course, you're Nosikrap, you know.

-I'm Nosikrap, yes, I know.

-LAUGHTER

You have, of course, made a virtue of this in the Two Ronnies,

cos one of my favourite bits of it is the mispronunciation.

-Oh, yes, yes. Do you want a bit of that?

-I would like that.

I'll give you that. And give you a bit of that.

Good evening, last year, I spoke to you

appealing for help for those who, like myself, have trouble with worms.

They can't pronounce their worms properly.

Now, I am the secretary for the Loyal Society for the Relief

of Sufferers from Pismonunciation. LAUGHTER

Now, the recent I'm once more squeaking to you tonight is

that many people last time couldn't understand what I was spraying.

So I'm back again on your little queens

to straighten it and make it all queer.

It's a terrible thung to be ting-tied.

It's even worse when your weirds get all mucksed up

and come out in whacka-say that you dink not what you thung you bing.

Like I did just then, only crutch, much nurse.

Though, it can be cured by careful draining and special draining

stools, which the society has fed up all over the Twiddish Isles.

And for the really dicky felt cases,

we have a three-year bash course on the Isle of Fright.

But the disease is spreading.

It affects people from all walks of loaf,

members of the swivel service, lawyers, silly sodders...

Commercial dribblers, cop-sheepers and whack-tree ferverts.

Especially on the night shirt.

And famous piddly-ticians like Widdly Hamilton,

not forgetting of course Penoch Owl. Stars of screege and stain

like Black Mygraves, Frantic Howard and Peculiar Clark.

And of course, Rudoll Noriev, the ballet dangler.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE So, have you got that?

Amongst the things that made the Two Ronnies different to other

double acts was the fact that they both had individual successes

alongside the Two Ronnies Show.

Ronnie Barker had Porridge and Open All Hours.

Ronnie Corbett played the son of a domineering

mother in the sitcom Sorry!.

And "sorry" is what he ended up saying a lot at the end of this

interview with Terry Wogan.

Just watch how it unfurls...

I'm sorry to have been so long in getting here, Terry.

-I know, you were in Australia.

-Yes, I've been in Australia.

-I nearly didn't make it today, either.

-Why?

Had a really nasty accident this morning at home.

I was cleaning out the budgie cage and the door slammed on me.

LAUGHTER

I was stuck in there for an hour and a half, Terry. It was awful.

And I thought, "Ring the bell," you know?

-I'm sorry, I panic into these jokes.

-What about your solo vehicle?

-You're pleased, you must be, with the success of "Sorry!".

-"Sorry!"?

Oh, yes, yes, I enjoy doing that.

-Do you identify with poor old put-upon Timothy Lumsden?

-With Tim?

Not truly but I can see, I've been told, a lot of people come up to me

and say, a lot of people write in saying, "You may think this is over

"the top but, I mean, I know somebody who lives like this.

"I know, a mother and son."

And if it isn't true throughout,

there are elements of it that people see and think, "God, that's me."

I even see myself as a father saying, "Oh, my God." You know,

as a parent behaving like that.

There's no elements of Timothy Lumsden in you, do you think?

I don't...

No, I don't mean that as a slur on your mother or anything.

I don't talk to my mother much about the show.

-She pretends she doesn't see it.

-Does she?

She says, "Oh...Ronnie."

Yeah, but Timothy seems to be well-adjusted to the,

at least the problem of his size.

Would you say that's true of you as well?

Or was that a terrific struggle for you early on,

to come to terms with?

Not a terrific struggle but I suppose I worried about it,

like you do, as a teenager.

But everybody worries about something

whether it would be spots, or overweight.

So I worried a bit about it

but in the end it's been my, kind of, whole...

I mean, it started my wanting to be in the business

and the whole making of me as me, is that, now.

Without it, I... I dread to think what would happen,

if, you know, if there was something they could do,

to suddenly make me shoot up, you know, I wouldn't...

You could take Ronnie Barker's part and he could be the small one.

-I'd shoot out.

-If you get fat.

-Timmy! Timmy!

-If you get any...you get...

-Oh, my God.

What are you doing here?

-Mother...

-I said if we got separated,

you were to go straight to the lost children's corner.

Mother, I am 42.

What is this place? It looks like the alien lounge at Luton Airport.

-Excuse me, Mother, I am being interviewed.

-What?

-Have you...?

I've told you about talking to strange men.

-LAUGHTER

-Excuse me, this is, this is...

-I'm sorry, excuse me. This is Terry Wogan.

-How do you do?

How do you do, Mrs Lumsden?

Is he wearing a demob suit? LAUGHTER

I've never met a Wogan before but there must be

lots of you in the telephone directory.

Never trust a man with borrowed teeth, Timothy.

LAUGHTER Oh, well.

-All good things must come to an end.

-I...

Now, say thank you to this gentleman, whoever he is.

-I'm sorry, Terry. I'm sorry...

-But...

"Thank you for having me."

Thank you for having me.

LAUGHTER

-And don't ever let me catch you talking to him again.

-Oh!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Come along. Home!

If people thought Ronnie Corbett was just like Timothy Lumsden,

with Ronnie Barker it was impossible to say if he was

more like Fletcher from Porridge or Arkwright from Open All Hours.

One reason for that was that Barker was a genius with voices,

which is something he discusses here...

I was going to ask you about the varicose and various parts...

which you performed in the course...

-In the course...

-Course? Have you spell that?

The course of your television series...

My God, I'll get this question out if it kills me.

In the course of your television series...

HE SNORES

-Yes? In the course of my television series, what?

-I remember talking...

-What was the first half of the question?

-I remember talking...

Why are my questions longer than your answers?

Beryl Reid telling me that when she starts to take on a character...

-No, she didn't tell me now.

-I thought she'd come on.

She said she starts from the shoes. She gets a pair of shoes

and builds the character from the shoes.

She's told me that, yes. It's true, yes.

Cos she hobbles about the house in those little shoes.

Never mind that. How do you construct a character?

-Do you take it from the shoes or the other way?

-I start with the voice.

The voice. I think of the voice first.

I think, you know, I just like to hear this sound of the voice,

whatever it is.

Or, you know, Fletcher. I mean, you know, " Naff off".

That's my expression. That's Fletcher's expression, "naff off."

-It's not Princess Anne.

-No, no, no. Naff off, son, go on.

And I, and then, from the voice comes the face, I think.

IN WELSH ACCENT: The Welsh one, you know, Welsh, you see.

Your eyes go like that.

Oh...

I think accents come...

I don't know if it's accents cause the shape of the face or...

I think it's the shape of the face that causes the accent.

IN FRENCH ACCENT: I think, because French people,

hold their faces like this.

IN SCOTTISH ACCENT: Scottish people. If you all put your face like that,

and speak normally, you sound quite Scottish, you know?

Stick your chin out.

-Are you a funny man at home?

-No, I never go home, no.

LAUGHTER

I'm sort of... Sometimes I'm funny. I make my wife laugh.

But she'd laugh to see a pudding crawl, as they say.

The essence of a happy marriage - as long as you can make your wife laugh.

Oh, yes. Well, I made her laugh the first night.

Oh, yes.

What about this Corbett person that you work with,

-how do you know him?

-No, he's a man. He's a man.

-Is he?

-Oh, yes.

-How do you get on with him?

-Eh?

-How do you get on with them?

-We start with Lego.

-Let's have the truth.

Ah...

Well, I just, I take him out in the morning,

fit him up and work through the day. Put him back in the box, nice as pie.

No, we get on very... we have a lovely time.

Despite their closeness and the obvious affection

they had for each other,

it was rare for the Two Ronnies to be interviewed together.

But here we have one of those moments capturing them

in 1978, after they'd both received OBEs from the Queen.

-Can you describe the ceremony?

-Describe the ceremony.

It was rather moving, wasn't it?

I thought the bride's father was wonderful. No, it was lovely.

-Nerve-racking and sort of moving, really.

-Yes, very.

You got very nervous. We both had to go to the spend-a-penny, didn't we?

-Yes, I had to use the royal we. Twice.

-Yes, yes.

What did the Queen say to you?

She said that she was very pleased that...

to be able to be doing this for us,

because she thought it was rather nice to make people laugh

in these days when perhaps there wasn't quite so much to laugh about.

She said. I didn't know whether to agree with their about that.

Then she said, "Are you going to be on the stage again together?"

And I said, "We have never appeared on the stage before

"but we are going to, at the Palladium, for the summer."

-And I had the temerity to ask her to come.

-Yes.

-And she said she would.

Yes, which was rather nice.

-We were surprised how few staff there were in the place.

-Yes.

Because at the end of the ceremony Her Majesty the Queen

swept down the staircase, didn't she?

Then she dusted the mantelpiece and did a little hoovering

and went home.

Yeah, it was lovely. It was very, very, very impressive.

Actually, I can't stay very long

because I've got to be back on a wedding cake at 3 o'clock. So I...

No, it's not true. Not true. He gets all his clothes from Action Man.

That moment contains everything wonderful about the Ronnies B and C.

Even on a hugely significant occasion,

they just couldn't stop trying to make it funny.

Just like they never ever missed an opportunity

to make the British public laugh.

APPLAUSE

Well, that's all we have time for this week.

Next week we'll talk to a man...

Next week we'll talk to a man who crossed a table tennis ball

with an extremely tall chamberpot

and got a ping-pong-piddle-high-po.

LAUGHTER

And in the divorce court today, an 85-year-old farmer

divorced his 17-year-old wife because he couldn't keep his hands off her.

He's now sacked all his hands and bought a combine harvester.

LAUGHTER

That's all we've got time for this evening

-so good night from me.

-And good night from him.

-Good night, now.

-Good night. APPLAUSE