Monthly Archives: September 2023

Film, TV, and Theatre

The Two Ronnies’ Mastermind Sketch (1980)

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Like More­cambe and Wise before them, the com­e­dy part­ner­ship of Ron­nie Bark­er and Ron­nie Cor­bett as the Two Ron­nies was one made in heav­en. Two strik­ing­ly affa­ble guys with nat­u­ral­ly fun­ny bones, remark­able chem­istry, and an obvi­ous mutu­al deep friend­ship, the Two Ron­nies’ lega­cy has hap­pi­ly been besmirched by nei­ther time nor scan­dal. Their TV show was a huge­ly pop­u­lar fea­ture of Sat­ur­day night enter­tain­ment from 1971 to 1987 and every­one grow­ing up dur­ing this peri­od will remem­ber their shows with great fond­ness, and per­haps con­jure a men­tal pic­ture of the Ron­nies as news­read­ers, read­ing spoof news items and end­ing each show with:

Cor­bett: That’s all we’ve got time for, so it’s “Good­night” from me.

Bark­er: And it’s “Good­night” from him.

Both: Good­night!

The Ron­nies had met each oth­er back in 1963 and first appeared on tele­vi­sion togeth­er in 1966 in The Frost Report with David Frost and John Cleese. How­ev­er, their big break occurred as a result of an eleven-minute tech­ni­cal hitch at a BAFTA awards cer­e­mo­ny at the Lon­don Pal­la­di­um in 1970, in which they filled in, unpre­pared and unscript­ed, with such aplomb that two audi­ence mem­bers, Bill Cot­ton and Sir Paul Fox (the Head of Light Enter­tain­ment and the Con­troller of BBC1 respec­tive­ly), offered them a show on the BBC!

The Two Ron­nies show was filled with sketch­es, either stand­alone or fea­tur­ing recur­ring char­ac­ters, and often involv­ing clever word-play (their Four Can­dles sketch being a case in point). Many of the jokes revolved around Corbett’s lack of height, with the self-dep­re­ca­to­ry Ron­nie C deliv­er­ing many of them him­self:

Bark­er: This next part does suit Ron­nie C. right down to the ground.

Cor­bett: Mind you, that’s not far is it?”

The Ron­nies also had their own solo sec­tion: Ron­nie B usu­al­ly appear­ing as the head of some ridicu­lous­ly-named organ­i­sa­tion, and Ron­nie C deliv­er­ing a dis­cur­sive mono­logue to cam­era from his famous arm­chair. Each series also had an ongo­ing com­ic ser­i­al fea­tur­ing pri­vate detec­tives Charley Far­ley and Pig­gy Mal­one (remem­ber The Phan­tom Rasp­ber­ry Blow­er of Old Lon­don Town?), giv­ing ample scope to guests such as Diana Dors and Kate O’Mara to ham it up.

My favourite sketch though is this clas­sic from 1980, the hilar­i­ous Mas­ter­mind sketch, which you can enjoy below and then per­haps go on to read the tran­script of the revised, expand­ed (and in some places even cor­rect­ed) ver­sion which was per­formed as part of their 1983 Lon­don Pal­la­di­um res­i­den­cy.

Tran­script:

MAGNUS: And so to our final con­tender. Your name, please?

SMITHERS: Good evening.

MAGNUS: Thank you. In the first heat your cho­sen sub­ject was Answer­ing Ques­tions Before They Were Asked. This time you have cho­sen to Answer the Ques­tion Before Last each time. Is that cor­rect?

SMITHERS: Char­lie Smithers.

MAGNUS: And your time starts now. What is palaeon­tol­ogy?

SMITHERS: Yes, absolute­ly cor­rect.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. What is the name of the direc­to­ry that lists mem­bers of the peer­age?

SMITHERS: A study of old fos­sils.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. Who are David Owen and Sir Geof­frey Howe?

SMITHERS: Burke’s.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. What’s the dif­fer­ence between a don­key and an ass?

SMITHERS: One’s a Social Demo­c­rat, the oth­er’s a mem­ber of the Cab­i­net.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. Com­plete the quo­ta­tion, “To be or not to be…”

SMITHERS: They’re both the same.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. What is Bernard Man­ning famous for?

SMITHERS: That is the ques­tion.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. Who is the present Arch­bish­op of Can­ter­bury?

SMITHERS: He’s a fat man who tells blue jokes.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. What do peo­ple kneel on in church?

SMITHERS: The Most Rev­erend Robert Run­cie.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. What do taran­tu­las prey on?

SMITHERS: Has­socks.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. What would you use a rip­cord to pull open?

SMITHERS: Large flies.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. What did Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe always claim to wear in bed?

SMITHERS: A para­chute.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. What was the next new TV sta­tion to go on the air after Chan­nel Four?

SMITHERS: Chanel Num­ber Five.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. What do we nor­mal­ly asso­ciate with Bed­lam?

SMITHERS: Break­fast tele­vi­sion.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. What are jock­straps?

SMITHERS: Nut­cas­es.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. What would a jock­ey use a stir­rup for?

SMITHERS: An ath­let­ic sup­port.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. Arthur Scargill is well known for what?

SMITHERS: He puts his foot in it.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. Who was the famous clown who made mil­lions laugh with his fun­ny hair?

SMITHERS: The leader of the minework­ers’ union.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. What would a dec­o­ra­tor use meth­yl­ene chlo­rides to make?

SMITHERS: Coco.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. What did Hen­ri Toulouse-Lautrec do?

SMITHERS: Paint strip­pers.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. What is Dean Mar­tin famous for?

SMITHERS: Is he an artist?

MAGNUS: Yes — what kind of artist?

SMITHERS: Erm… pass.

MAGNUS: Yes, that’s near enough. What make of vehi­cle is the stan­dard Lon­don bus?

SMITHERS: A Singer.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. In 1892, Bran­don Thomas wrote a famous long-run­ning Eng­lish farce — what is it?

SMITHERS: British Ley­land.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect. Com­plete the fol­low­ing quo­ta­tion about Shirley Williams: “Her heart may be in the right place but her…”

SMITHERS: “Charley’s Aunt”.

MAGNUS: Cor­rect, and you have scored 22 and no pass­es!

The Two Ron­nies
Poetry

Alexander Pope’s An Essay On Criticism (1711)

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When it comes to lit­er­ary “wits”, two names are often bandied about, name­ly Samuel John­son and Oscar Wilde, but hon­ourable men­tion should be reserved for a ver­i­ta­ble club of wits that thrived in ear­ly 18th cen­tu­ry Lon­don. Found­ed in 1714, The Scriblerus Club was an infor­mal asso­ci­a­tion of writ­ers com­pris­ing promi­nent fig­ures of the Eng­lish lit­er­ary scene such as the satirists Jonathan Swift, Alexan­der Pope and John Gay. One of the club’s pur­pos­es was to ridicule pre­ten­tious writ­ing of the era which they did through the per­sona of a fic­ti­tious lit­er­ary hack, Mar­t­i­nus Scriblerus. They were the Pri­vate Eye of their time.

Swift would become famous for his 1726 prose satire Gulliver’s Trav­els; John Gay for The Beggar’s Opera in 1728; and Alexan­der Pope for a series of eru­dite mock-hero­ic nar­ra­tive poet­ry includ­ing The Rape of the Lock, The Dun­ci­ad, and An Essay on Crit­i­cism. Despite its dry title, the lat­ter was indeed poet­ry, one of Pope’s first major poems, in fact, and one which had already been pub­lished pri­or to the com­ing togeth­er of the Scriblerati. It is the source of the famous quo­ta­tions “To err is human; to for­give, divine”, “A lit­tle learn­ing is a dan­g’rous thing”, and “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread”, which is a pret­ty impres­sive set of addi­tions to the lex­i­con for just one poem.

An Essay on Crit­i­cism was com­posed in hero­ic cou­plets (pairs of rhyming lines of iambic pen­tame­ter) and writ­ten in the man­ner of the Roman satirist Horace (65–8 BCE), known for his play­ful crit­i­cism of the many and var­ied social vices of Roman soci­ety through his light-heart­ed odes. Essen­tial­ly, Pope’s poem is a Hor­a­t­ian-style verse essay offer­ing advice about the chief lit­er­ary ideals of his age and cri­tiquing writ­ers and crit­ics who failed to attain his (evi­dent­ly pret­ty high) stan­dards.

Pope’s open­ing cou­plets con­tend that bad crit­i­cism is even worse than bad writ­ing, thus sig­nalling that even crit­ics should be on their guard, not just pure writ­ers. Dare I say, it has an ele­ment of con­tem­po­rary “rap bat­tles” or “roasts” with its gen­tle rib­bing of infe­ri­or writ­ers; it’s not too hard to imag­ine a mod­ern-day ren­der­ing of these lines, per­haps with a mike-drop­ping flour­ish at the end:

‘Tis hard to say, if greater Want of Skill
Appear in Writ­ing or in Judg­ing ill;
But, of the two, less dan­g’rous is th’ Offence,
To tire our Patience, than mis-lead our Sense:
Some few in that, but Num­bers err in this,
Ten Cen­sure wrong for one who Writes amiss;
A Fool might once him­self alone expose,
Now One in Verse makes many more in Prose.

Pope points out com­mon faults in poet­ry such as set­tling for easy and clichéd rhymes:

While they ring round the same unvary’d Chimes,
With sure Returns of still expect­ed Rhymes.
Where-e’er you find the cool­ing West­ern Breeze,
In the next Line, it whis­pers thro’ the Trees;
If Crys­tal Streams with pleas­ing Mur­murs creep,
The Read­er’s threat­en’d (not in vain) with Sleep.

The cou­plets are impec­ca­bly and relent­less­ly deliv­ered, 372 in all, each rapped out in that steady da-dum da-dum da-dum da-dum da-dum iambic pen­tame­ter. Pope only breaks out of iambic pen­tame­ter once, and that’s delib­er­ate:

A need­less Alexan­drine ends the song,
That, like a wound­ed snake, drags its slow length along

The sec­ond line of this cou­plet is itself an Alexan­drine, which is iambic hexa­m­e­ter, a form that Pope evi­dent­ly regard­ed as laboured and inel­e­gant with that extra da-dum and which this line demon­strates (ged­dit?). The whole piece is a mas­ter­class in poet­ry, and all writ­ten when Pope was just twen­ty-two, so take that, pre­ten­tious and turgid writ­ers of the 1700s!

Alexan­der Pope
Music

Sam & Dave’s Soul Man (1967)

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In the six­ties, just as Berry Gordy up in Detroit was dri­ving the Motown sound, down in Mem­phis the most influ­en­tial cre­ator and pro­mot­er of that crossover of blues/soul/pop music known as the Mem­phis sound was Stax Records, found­ed in 1957 by Jim Stew­art and Estelle Axton (Stewart/Axton = Stax). Unprece­dent­ed in that time of racial ten­sion and strife in the South, Stax’s staff and artists were eth­ni­cal­ly inte­grat­ed, includ­ing their leg­endary house band Book­er T & the MGs, who played on hun­dreds of record­ings by artists includ­ing Wil­son Pick­ett, Otis Red­ding, and Bill With­ers.

Book­er T & the MGs c. 1967 (L–R): Don­ald “Duck” Dunn, Book­er T. Jones (seat­ed), Steve Crop­per, Al Jack­son Jr.

Anoth­er suc­cess­ful Stax act was Sam & Dave, made up of har­mo­nious­ly-com­pat­i­ble soul singers Samuel Moore and David Prater, and today let’s enjoy their 1967 record­ing, Soul Man, writ­ten by Isaac Hayes and David Porter. Hayes had found the inspi­ra­tion for the song in the tur­moil of the Civ­il Rights Move­ment. In July 1967 he had watched a tele­vi­sion news­cast about the after­math of the 12th Street riot in Detroit, Michi­gan, and not­ed that black res­i­dents had daubed the word “soul” onto their build­ings in the hope that the riot­ers would pass them by – anal­o­gous to the bib­li­cal sto­ry of the Passover, it was their way of say­ing “Please don’t wreck my build­ing, I’m one of you” (so to speak). The idea mor­phed in Hayes’ mind into an expres­sion of pride and defi­ance: “I’m a soul man!”.

The MGs were draft­ed in to record the song, with the help of horns from that oth­er reli­able Stax house band, the Mar-Keys, and the result was an instant smash that would enter the Gram­my Hall of Fame. Sam and Dave take it in turns to sing the vers­es, join­ing in togeth­er for the cho­rus­es, and com­ple­ment­ing each oth­er seam­less­ly. One of Steve Cropper’s gui­tar licks is intro­duced by the excla­ma­tion “Play it, Steve”, a nuance that was repeat­ed some years lat­er when Soul Man was includ­ed as one of the soul clas­sics paid trib­ute to by the mak­ers of 1980’s The Blues Broth­ers movie (in which Crop­per makes an appear­ance).

Here’s a TV appear­ance by the duo singing Soul Man (sans Crop­per and thus sans the “Play it Steve” snip­pet but hey…) to an audi­ence that does­n’t quite yet know how to move to the rhythm!

Sam and Dave