{"id":487,"date":"2011-02-20T16:25:36","date_gmt":"2011-02-20T16:25:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/?p=487"},"modified":"2014-06-24T18:20:30","modified_gmt":"2014-06-24T17:20:30","slug":"ronnie-corbett-natural-born-storyteller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/?p=487","title":{"rendered":"RONNIE CORBETT: NATURAL BORN STORYTELLER"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>After almost 60 years as an entertainer, Ronnie Corbett remains one of the most instantly recognisable faces on British television. Martin McGrath<\/strong> talks to him about life in the union, comedy and his only disagreemnet with Ronnie Barker.<\/h3>\n

Meeting Ronnie Corbett is a strange experience. He has been one of the most instantly recognisable faces on television for decades and you immediately get the sense that this is someone you\u2019ve known and liked for a long time. At the peak of The Two Ronnies<\/em> popularity 22 million people were tuning in each week for the mix of sketches, variety-style entertainment and clever word play. That show lasted an incredible 16 years and together Ronnie Corbett and Ronnie Barker made 98 episodes. But like all good showmen, they quit on their own terms in 1987 leaving audiences still wanting more.<\/p>\n

I think it is fair to say that for many years Ronnie Corbett was more famous than most rock stars.<\/p>\n

However, even though we meet for the interview in the salubrious surroundings of the Hilton Park Lane Hotel, where Ronnie is getting ready for a corporate gig as after-dinner speaker and awards host, there is nothing in the way he acts that suggests that the fame might have changed him.<\/p>\n

Indeed, chatting to him about his career, and almost 60 years as a member of Equity, he seems exactly like the character we are familiar with from years on the television. He is relaxed and funny and his answers to my questions are long, occasionally rambling, encompass an enormous cast of characters and are suffused with self-deprecating wit. He\u2019s quick to pay tribute to the help he has received throughout his career and the contribution of the performers, producers and writers he\u2019s worked with. His answers to my questions are most often diverted along routes that lead to praise for other people.<\/p>\n

For example, when I show him a copy of his original Equity application form, and ask him what he remembers about joining the union, he immediately begins to discuss the people who helped him into his first role.<\/p>\n

\u201cI finished my national service and my first job was a film at Southall Studios that I got into through my dear friend Ted Hardwick whose mum, Pixie Hardwick, was my main encourager and sponsor,\u201d he remembers. \u201cShe knew a man called Reginald Beckwith who was a comedy actor and writer and he\u2019d co-written the script for a film that was being made at Glasgow University called You\u2019re Only Young Twice<\/em>. Pixie sent me along to see Reginald and the director Terry Bishop and I got the part of the president of the student\u2019s union, and that was my first job.\u201d<\/p>\n

He confesses that, unlike many performers at the time who regarded getting the Equity card as something of a rite of passage, his focus was more practical. \u201cMy main aim was not to get an Equity card but to get some work,\u201d he said. But he did come from a trade union background. \u201cMy father, who\u2019d been a baker all his life, was a strong union man \u2013 perhaps stronger than me. In those days the miners and the bakers had to struggle over terrible wages and conditions, so I did have unionism in my blood.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was proposed and seconded for his membership of Equity by the stars of You\u2019re Only Young Twice<\/em>, Diane Hart and Charles Hawtrey, but Corbett\u2019s future didn\u2019t lie in movies. Over the next decade Ronnie would make a smattering of television appearances but it was in clubs, reviews and seaside concert parties that he worked most often and started to make a name for himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn those days there were small pantomimes in rep and little concert parties dotted around the coast,\u201d he recalls. \u201cI did one in Cromer, that was my first stage job, directed funnily enough by Clive Dunn \u2013 Corporal Jones in Dad\u2019s Army<\/em> \u2013 who is celebrating his ninetieth birthday soon. Lovely fellow. He gave me my first job there in Cromer in a summer show.\u201d<\/p>\n

As well as providing much needed work, Ronnie looks back on those concert shows and his work on stage as laying important foundations for his future success because the work encouraged versatility.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main difference in those days was that you didn\u2019t only work as a comedian,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019d play roles in sketches, feeding lines to the show\u2019s stars, you might sing or dance and in each of the five 16 minute programmes \u2013 which we changed every week on a Thursday \u2013 I only had to do four minutes on my own. That\u2019s a big difference between now and then, you didn\u2019t have to rush on like you do today and do 45 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

From seaside concert shows Ronnie began to find work in London\u2019s burgeoning club scene \u2013 though not all of it was onstage. Between jobs he worked behind the bar at the Buxton Club, a famous hang-out for theatrical types in the late fifties and early sixties. It was there that he was introduced to Digby Wolfe \u2013 a comic, actor and writer \u2013 who used Ronnie in his television programme and then asked him to work in a show he was putting on in the hot Mayfair nightclub Winstons, then owned by Danny La Rue.<\/p>\n

The move to Winstons was an important one. Amongst the performers also on the bill in the nightclub was Ann Hart, who Ronnie would marry in 1965.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was singing and being very funny,\u201d Ronnie remembers.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re still together almost 45 years later. I asked Ronnie whether it helped having a partner who understood the business.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it did, certainly,\u201d he said. \u201cShe very unselfishly gave up the business. We lost our first baby and that really made her stop and think that she wanted to spend her time with our family, as she did with our girls [they have two daughters]. So she gave up performing. It was a bit of a waste really. But although she looks bold and fierce she wasn\u2019t that kind of person as a performer, she worried a lot. She did miss it at first, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n

As well as meeting his future wife on stage at Winstons, Ronnie was also spotted by David Frost, who invited him to work on The Frost Report<\/em>. On that show he worked with Ronnie Barker for the first time and under the auspices of Frost\u2019s company Paradigm he\u2019d go on to feature in television shows such as No \u2013 That\u2019s Me Over Here<\/em>, Now Look Here<\/em>, The Prince of Denmark<\/em> and hosting his own variety show, The Corbett Follies<\/em>.<\/p>\n

So he was already a successful and increasingly recognisable face on television when an appearance presenting an award with Ronnie Barker at the BAFTAs changed his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the Palladium there was a technical breakdown and we had to fill in for about seven minutes,\u201d he remembers. \u201cAnd Bill Cotton is supposed to have turned to Paul Fox and said do you think we could get them?\u201d<\/p>\n

In many ways The Two Ronnies<\/em> was an unusual show, not least because the two stars never really formed a traditional double-act. There was no straightman\/comedian split, they\u2019d often perform sketches and routines apart and even when they were on screen together it was very much a partnership of equals.<\/p>\n

When Ronnie Barker died in October 2005, Ronnie Corbett told the press that in all the years they\u2019d worked together there\u2019d never been a cross word between the two men.<\/p>\n

For those familiar with the sometimes competitive and occasionally spiky world of comedy it was a remarkable statement. Even more so given that this was a relationship without a defined funny man\/straight man division. Surely, I suggest, there must have been times when there was competition for the best lines?<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was never competition between us,\u201d Ronnie says flatly.<\/p>\n

There must have been something?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe only had one row,\u201d he says and suddenly I feel that I may have stumbled upon an exclusive. \u201cThere was a sketch which involved a man being paranoid about being caught by Eamon Andrews on This is Your Life<\/em>. Every time there was a knock at the door he\u2019d panic and eventually, of course, Eamon Andrews eventually comes through the door and catches him. We\u2019d rehearsed this sketch with me playing this unlikely role and it felt totally wrong. I went home to Ann that night and I said Ron\u2019s absolutely trying to elbow me into this role and it\u2019s not working, I should be playing the other part. It was so unusual and I really wasn\u2019t happy. Ann just said go quietly and do the sketch. Of course she knew that when Eamon Andrews appeared at the end of the sketch he was going to say \u201cRonnie Corbett this is your life!\u201d We\u2019d been rehearsing all day with the This is Your Life<\/em> in set in the flyers and I\u2019d never notice it. And so I was caught…\u201d<\/p>\n

So the truth is the only time Ronnie Corbett and Ronnie Barker argued about their work was when they had to bend the rules to accommodate the outside world.<\/p>\n

I asked Ronnie about the monologues he delivered from his famous chair, and I suggested that these sections were a very modern style of comedy \u2013 not the rapid fire gag! gag! gag! pattern familiar from other comedians of that era but more like the rambling storytelling that many modern comedians employ. Again he\u2019s quick to pass the credit for the success to the others \u2013 specifically to the writers Spike Mullins and David Renwick, who crafted the material for him over the years and for whom Ronnie\u2019s praise is effusive. When I try to insist that the format, which he\u2019d already used while introducing The Corbett Follies<\/em>, was ahead of its time and might explain why decades after the end of The Two Ronnies<\/em> he remains beloved of a new generation of comics, he prefers, again to talk about those behind the scenes.<\/p>\n

\u201cBen Elton wrote some very funny bits for the chair when he asked me to come back and do them,\u201d he said. \u201cDavid Renwick didn\u2019t feel up to it, and I shopped around for writers and we managed to cobble together the pieces but it made me realise how lucky I\u2019d been. But Ben did write a couple of my chair spots, they were a shade fierce, but they were still very good. Ben\u2019s a very funny and very brave comedian when it comes to his material.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the fact is that the wheel has turned. After what might have been an initial down period \u2013 the end of The Two Ronnies <\/em>coincided with the end of his most successful sitcom \u2013 Sorry<\/em> \u2013 Ronnie Corbett is now perhaps more respected than at any stage in his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be truthful I think that when the general public and some of the young comics see the shows repeated and see the quality of the stuff that we did, they know that it hasn\u2019t been matched since really. Your reign is extended a bit when people recognise the quality-in-depth of the material we did. They spent money on the show, we had the cream of writers, extraordinary production values, music, orchestras, dancers \u2013 they really looked after us.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no denying that there\u2019s nothing like The Two Ronnies<\/em> on television today but, I insist, it was about more than just the money. Surely the two performers at the heart of it all brought something special. The difference, Ronnie suggests, might lie in their background \u2013 both Ronnies had experience as character actors and in a wide variety of performance styles.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe mustn\u2019t mention names, but some modern comedians or presenters are very personable but if they try to play a funny character they can\u2019t, because they don\u2019t have the training or the background,\u201d he suggests. \u201cThere\u2019s nobody doing the sort of thing Ron and I did now. You see, we were partly actors. Particularly Ronnie, but me as well. We could play character sketches. We could play different classes of people. We could play people from different parts of the country \u2013 we could be Scottish, or from Lancashire or wearing smocks down in the West Country. And unlike some modern shows, we didn\u2019t find one character and keep doing it week-in-week-out, even if they were very strong characters.\u201d<\/p>\n

I ask him whether there\u2019s anything that he wishes he\u2019d done in his career and he seems at a loss for the first time in the interview. It\u2019s clearly not something he\u2019s given a great deal of thought to. What about films, I prompt?<\/p>\n

\u201cRon and I never did a film,\u201d he concedes. \u201cWe were asked but we wanted to find a subject where we weren\u2019t linked together in the film \u2013 like Morecambe and Wise or Canon and Ball \u2013 we wanted to find a story where we were quite independent but could come together to do our stuff but we never found the script. But Ronnie did play the Butler to Albert Finney\u2019s Churchill \u2013 I\u2019d like to do something like that. But the trouble is with me is that I am so clearly Ronnie Corbett when I come on, if I slightly try to disguise the fact it\u2019s a waste of time. But I suppose others get away with it. Ronnie did, and someone like Dawn French can do it brilliantly. She can be in all these wonderful period pieces and be believable doing it, but she\u2019s always Dawn French. But they don\u2019t seem to cast me.\u201d<\/p>\n

He did of course recently take a little step out of his onscreen persona when he appeared in Ricky Gervais\u2019s Extras<\/em> and is famously \u201ccaptured\u201d taking drugs during a BAFTA award ceremony. The memory of that makes him laugh.<\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoyed doing that,\u201d he said. \u201cRicky is very clever. I got a lot of reaction from Extras<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

So perhaps there\u2019s another turn in his career still to come if there are any directors brave enough to cast him against type? But he\u2019s not unhappy with his present lot. As we prepare to leave I ask him what he\u2019s most proud of having achieved in his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s obviously The Two Ronnies<\/em>,\u201d he said. \u201cBut you know I quite like that after all these years, I have gathered the facility to just go on in an evening after an awards ceremony or a dinner and do a half-an-hour and everybody think it\u2019s tripping of the end off my tongue and I can feel easy standing there \u2013 dressed up theatrically and doing a proper turn and providing laughs. You do benefit with the credit of people\u2019s memory of you. You walk on carrying that goodwill with you, so as long as you\u2019re professional and give them a good show, you start with a big plus.\u201d<\/p>\n

So he doesn\u2019t envy the modern comedians with their stadium tours and their huge crowds?<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t like to do an arena stadium, I think the Palladium is quite big enough for a turn. The idea of the 02 doesn\u2019t appeal. I think comedy needs a connection with people \u2013 you\u2019ve got to be in touch,\u201d he said. But he accepts that the rise of the \u201crock star\u201d comedian is a sign that the business has changed. \u201cThey all play terrific tours, like Rob Brydon or Michael McIntyre, both of whom I love. Their tours are huge. They seem to do better in live performance than they do on the box. It says something for the state of television today. It is so different and the audience is so fragmented that you can\u2019t get the numbers that we used to. So now they do these great colourful tours. I look at the advertising pages in the colour supplements and I wonder where they\u2019re all going to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

But while the comedy scene might have changed out of all recognition in the almost 60 years since Ronnie Corbett got his first Equity card on the set at Southall Studios, one thing has remained constant, his membership of the union.<\/p>\n

\u201cBECS is an amazing service. I got a cheque from them yesterday. It\u2019s something that the union has had to fight for and I often think of all those people who made films before a certain date and didn\u2019t get anything. I am most certainly aware of how valuable it is to have a strong union supporting claims and putting people\u2019s thoughts and well-being in one place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Does he have any advice for new comedians? Again he hesitates. He doesn\u2019t want to be seen as talking down to anyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou should stick together,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s because of the nature of the beast, in a way. The great comedians who I loved and was brought up watching \u2013 like Jack Benny and Bob Hope \u2013 all did these wonderful, effective, stylish acts with a company. They were basically production comics who thought through the whole show \u2013 they worried that the set would be nice and the girls would look good and that the orchestra would be right \u2013 not just \u2018how long am I on for?\u2019 \u2013 and that\u2019s the foundation of the union. There is more to show business than just thinking of yourself. They thought of the company and weren\u2019t so self-interested. And the union was a very important part of the structure of it all. All that work we did together throughout our careers, all the while we were all Equity members. All working for the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was astounded to learn that a number of modern comedians aren\u2019t members of Equity \u2013 it\u2019s very sad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throughout our interview Ronnie Corbett proves that, like his heroes, he\u2019s still thinking about the rest of the production not just about himself. His modesty is striking, his determination to share the credit for his success is admirable and his memory of those he\u2019s worked with is razor sharp.<\/p>\n

Some people, having achieved far less, have become far more convinced of their own importance and demand recognition from all around them. It says something for Ronnie Corbett\u2019s self-confidence and strength of character that there isn\u2019t a whiff of egotism about him.<\/p>\n

And yet, despite his best attempts to avoid taking any of the credit for his own success, his talents are obvious throughout our meeting \u2013 and have not dimmed over the years. He still has that easy wit, the casual charm and, above all else, he is a fantastic raconteur.<\/p>\n

Ronnie Corbett is a natural-born storyteller and that can\u2019t help but shine through.<\/p>\n

(Origninally published in Equity<\/em> magazine. \u00a9 Equity)<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After almost 60 years as an entertainer, Ronnie Corbett remains one of the most instantly recognisable faces on British television. Martin McGrath talks to him about life in the union, comedy and his only disagreemnet with Ronnie Barker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":488,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[13,8],"tags":[83,5,4],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Ronnie-Corbett.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p27AP7-7R","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=487"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1686,"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487\/revisions\/1686"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mmcgrath.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}