Add to FavouritesAbout this Broadcast
Season 10, Episode 3
Vintage comedy featuring the much-loved duo performing sketches including Filling In, Martial Arts, Office Quickie and Vagabond Lover, plus a guest appearance by Elton John
subtitles
Movie/Drama
Sketches
More Information
Did You Know..
Ronnie Barker
(Performer)
Born:
September 25, 1929
in
Bedford
Best Known For:
Porridge and The Two Ronnies.
Early-life:
Ronald William George Barker was born in Bedfordshire on September 25, 1929. He developed a love of theatre as a child when he attended plays with his family, and frequently waited outside stage doors to collect autographs. He attended Donnington Junior School and then the City of Oxford High School for Boys. After leaving school, he trained as an architect but gave it up after six months. Harbouring dreams of becoming an actor, he worked in amateur dramatics for 18 months while employed as a clerk in a bank.
Career:
Barker joined the Oxford Playhouse in 1951 and other theatrical work in the West End followed. His theatrical success led to radio work, and he featured in 300 episodes of radio sitcom The Navy Lark, which ran from 1959 to 1977. His big break on TV came in the late 1960s when he appeared alongside Ronnie Corbett and John Cleese on The Frost Report. Barker went on to star in Porridge, Open All Hours, and, with Ronnie Corbett, formed one of the best-loved double acts of the 1970s and 1980s as The Two Ronnies. He also appeared with Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn in the film Robin and Marian, a bleak version of the Robin Hood legend. Barker retired from acting in 1987 to run an antiques business, but returned briefly to star as Winston Churchill's butler in acclaimed 2002 TV movie The Gathering Storm, and alongside Maggie Smith in My House in Umbria in 2003. He died of heart failure at a hospice in Oxfordshire on October 3, 2005, at the age of 76.
Quote:
'The toilets at a local police station have been stolen. Police say they have nothing to go on.'
Trivia:
He was awarded an OBE in 1978.
Ronnie Corbett
(Performer)
Born:
December 04, 1930
in
Edinburgh
Best Known For:
Being one half of The Two Ronnies.
Early-life:
Born Ronald Balfour Corbett on December 4, 1930, in Edinburgh, the son of a baker. Corbett realised he wanted to be a performer after appearing in a pantomime at the age of 16, but first served in the Royal Air Force as a commissioned officer during his National Service. He later worked as a storeman and a bar manager to make ends meet before moving to London in 1951 to further his showbiz career, where he became Danny La Rue's straightman.
Career:
In 1966, David Frost asked Corbett to join The Frost Report, where he met Ronnie Barker. Their on-screen chemistry proved so successful that their series, The Two Ronnies, ran from 1971 to 1987. After Barker's retirement, Corbett appeared in cabaret, in the Ray Cooney farce Out of Order and John Cleese's film Fierce Creatures, and featured in a variety of TV programmes, including The Ronnie Corbett Show and The Ben Elton Show. During his time on The Two Ronnies, he also had his own sitcom, Sorry!, which ran for seven years. His other TV credits included Love Soup, Extras, Little Britain and two-part documentary Ronnie Corbett's Comedy Britain. He revived some of his old Two Ronnies sketches together with new material in a special Christmas Day show The One Ronnie, which aired in 2010. He died on March 31, 2016 at the age of 85.
Quote:
'People laugh when I arrive, without my even having to say a joke. There is, I suppose, something comic in the way I speak and move.'
Trivia:
In 2012, Corbett received a CBE to add to the OBE he was awarded in 1978.
Elton John
(Musical guest)
Born:
March 25, 1947
in
Pinner, Middlesex
Best Known For:
His long music career.
Early-life:
Born Reginald Kenneth Dwight in Pinner, Middlesex, on March 25, 1947, the son of a Royal Air Force trumpeter. He won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music aged 11 - but quit shortly before graduating to join band Bluesology. The group supported American soul acts and backed legendary British musician Long John Baldry. A conflict of interests with the latter caused arguments and Dwight left shortly before meeting lyricist Bernie Taupin. Dwight changed his name to Elton Hercules John in 1968.
Career:
John's first solo album flopped in 1969, but its follow-up and the single Your Song were hits. Rocket Man in 1972 marked the beginning of an incredible run of success - 16 straight Top 20 hits (15 of which went Top 10). He has sold more than 250 million records worldwide. In 1994, he won an Oscar for Can You Feel the Love Tonight, from Disney's The Lion King. A version of Candle in the Wind became the world's best-selling single, raising more than £20million for the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund. He has collaborated with Bernie Taupin on more than 30 albums, and continues to record and tour.
Quote:
'I think people should be free to engage in any sexual practices they choose. They should draw the line at goats, though.'
Trivia:
Profits from his singles go to the Elton John Aids Foundation. He was knighted in 1998.
