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October 05, 2005
Four candles - ‘andles for forks...
Yesterday when I heard of the sad death of Ronnie Barker, I decided that I was going to write a blog post about him and call it ‘And it’s goodnight from him.’ I was so proud of this title, I found it funny with a poignant resonance, just what I wanted. So because I was busy and didn’t get a chance to post straight away, those nasty people at the BBC got in before me, using it as a title to their tribute programme late last night. OK so I suppose it was obvious, I haven’t had a chance to look at the papers yet but no doubt most of them have had the same idea too. So I’ve thought again and have simply come up with the punch line of everyone’s favourite Two Ronnies sketch.
Yes I know it’s not particularly right on, or even PC to rave about the Two Ronnies but what I adored particularly about Barker (or Gerald Wiley as he liked to call himself as a writer) was not necessarily the slapstick or the bawdy innuendo for innuendo’s sake but his playful use and misuse of language (of which innuendo is only a small part), not to mention the essentially class based, almost Becket-like philosophical insight. Some of my favourite sketches were the ones where one of them stumbles over their words and the other one fills in for them, always getting it wrong. I know I should enter a quote here but I’m not one of those people who can memorise scenes off the top of my head... come on, you know what I mean.
Ronnie Barker RIP.
Posted by purple elephant at October 5, 2005 02:48 PM