Ronnie Corbett

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 10:08

The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand seven.

Speaker 10:27

My Castaway this week is an entertainer so central to British popular culture he can be identified by the outline of his glasses alone. He is Ronny Corbett.

Speaker 10:37

For more than fifty years, and from late night reviews to prime time sitcoms, his comic talents have made us laugh and made us love him, and Natalie turned out national treasure with a quick wit and a ready smile. His success is due, of course, to his own ability, but also to two enduring and remarkable partnerships. Along with Ronnie Barker, he formed one of the great T V duos of all time, whilst his forty year marriage to his wife Anne saw her abandon her flourishing Chobiz career to sustain him through the vicissitudes of fame and family life. Um Ronnie, I feel as though you should be sitting here in that leather chair with the chrome arms. It almost seemed like it was attached to you. Do do you know where it is now?

Ronnie Corbett1:12

P

Ronnie Corbett1:16

No, I don't. Um people people often say, By the way, we've got your chair and I s I say oh, I look forward to it and it's never the same chair. They keep getting various versions of it, so and it's never the original one. I don't know where that's gone.

Speaker 11:31

Uh the monologues that we watched in Our Millions that appeared to be so rambling and appeared to be it almost seemed like, you know, you in a cosy sweater at the nineteenth hole just just chatting, but of course it was it wasn't that at all. It was a carefully crafted monologue.

Ronnie Corbett1:46

Carefully, carefully crafted, carefully written in the first case by Spike Mullins, and then later by David Renwick. But Spike I stumb stumbled on me really, because I did a a programme on television where I was introducing things and rambling and getting lost and changing my mind and going back again. And Spike rang up.

Ronnie Corbett2:06

Thank God, and said, I think I could do this better for you, you know, I could make it more and and Spike did, and uh there he was, he did eight series of the two Ronnies, and nobody else wrote the chair, uh, he wrote it. And David Remwick, um, also the same, said, If Spike ever gets tired or worn out, I would love to step into his shoes and he did. So they're only two writers who really supplied the whole series, really.

Speaker 12:31

You said in the past that you've been very fortunate never to do what you called rubbish. You know, the the quality of the work you you have done has always been high. I mean, presumably you yourself have have guaranteed that. Have you been quite fussy with the writers and the the other production people you've worked with?

Ronnie Corbett2:46

Well, um

Ronnie Corbett2:48

Uh I don't think in those days we had to be fussy. They were all of such high standard, the po people who wrote, you know, for us um Gerald Wiley, of course, Ronnie B., fussiest of them all and very high standard stuff and Ian Davidson, Peter Vincent, Barry Cryer, Dick Bosborough, Spike Mullins, David Renwick, the list is endless of people who really took trouble and care and loved the words, as we did. So we were blessed, really.

Speaker 13:15

It all started when you were doing Babes in the Wood as a teenager, and somebody went to your mother and said, What was it they said that?

Ronnie Corbett3:18

He's a teenage

Speaker 13:22

I ought to tell you something quite remarkable is happening down at the church hall. What was happening?

Ronnie Corbett3:24

Tapping

Ronnie Corbett3:26

Yes, it was Tom Maxwell who was the minister who called on my mum, as ministers do. Uh we were rehearsing a pantomime and I was playing The Wicked Aunt and it was the turning point, of course, in my life and having gone through school not that I suffered from it at the time, but I feel sort of unnoticed. This role in the pantomime was

Ronnie Corbett3:49

a real warning beacon to me that there's this is what I wanted to do. So I took the hint and the message and from then on that was it.

Speaker 13:57

Tell me about your first piece of music.

Ronnie Corbett3:58

My first piece of music is Fred Astaire singing Change Partners and Dance With Me and of course to this day I just adore watching him. And I mean he's just I think the most watchable person I have ever seen in all my life doing anything and everything. Must you dance?

Speaker 34:22

Every dime

Speaker 34:26

With the same

Speaker 34:29

Fortunate man

Speaker 34:33

You have danced with him since the music began

Speaker 34:41

Won't you change?

Speaker 34:44

Partners

Speaker 14:47

Fred a stair and change partners and dance with me. Would you be dancing to that on the island?

Ronnie Corbett4:52

I suppose I would in my solitary way. Just listening to him, you see him dancing as well. Oh, it's just wonderful.

Speaker 14:59

You've said you think that part of the key to your success is your lack of fear. You're never afraid of and your wife said it too, of sort of throwing yourself into things. You you've you've tackled your professional and personal life without fear.

Ronnie Corbett5:11

Y yes, that's true. F uh fearless, because when I came out of the Air Force having done my national service, which was sort of the making of me, national service was really coming down to London with ninety one pound of the post office savings bank and taking a bed sit and that was me. Um that was my world and I just set about it really.

Speaker 15:31

And what about your parents? What what sort of people were they? Your father was a master baker.

Ronnie Corbett5:34

My father was a baker, yes, a craftsman beyond belief. I mean, who could make anything short pastry, puff pastry, rough puff pastry, black buns, you know, charlottes, uh cherry cakes, chocolate cakes. I mean, he could do the lot just

Speaker 15:49

My mouse is watering, but I'll try to get the next question out.

Ronnie Corbett5:51

Yeah.

Ronnie Corbett5:53

Yes, he well, he could bake at home, but uh because when when I was at home at school, my dad was at the bake house, so for anything we enjoyed he maybe brought home from the bake house, you know.

Speaker 16:05

You were a much longed for child. I mean, your parents it was quite a few years of marriage before

Ronnie Corbett6:07

It was quite a few years of marriage before. Yes, six years, I think. And then nearly six years before my brother arrived, and then another four years before my sister arrived. So it was all I mean, in those days, you see, they were canny, you know, the child was

Ronnie Corbett6:23

Not arranged in the household until the wages could stand for it, really. Everything was kind of.

Ronnie Corbett6:30

Awfully carefully worked out.

Speaker 16:32

So this was a pre-war Edinburgh. Conjurefour is a picture of pre-war Edinburgh, as you remember it.

Ronnie Corbett6:37

Well, very difficult really. I um had to take the tram to school, always of course we were on the Marchmont Circle, it was called, a number six, that went right round the whole of the s sk skirt of Edinburgh, and uh I'd go to school in the morning um on the uh on the tram and uh came back. Then you had your tea or your high tea, a bit of fried haddock or something, bread crumb by your mum, and some maybe homemade chips and a bit of tomato ketchup, and if you're lucky, some

Ronnie Corbett7:08

uh tinned pears or peaches with some carnation milk, although that was usually left for a Sunday. That was that was the day then you sat down a bit of homework or a bit of piano practice and

Speaker 17:19

You say Marchmont, now now I happen to know, of course, knowing Edinburgh, that Marchmont is quite a well, we would say it's got quite a panloafy part of it.

Ronnie Corbett7:26

And loafy.

Speaker 17:26

It's quite a posh part of Edinburgh, but you were sort of a very respectable working class family.

Ronnie Corbett7:28

To them, but you

Ronnie Corbett7:31

Yes, absolutely. My dad was a seriously working class chap who sought to improve his lot in life, really.

Speaker 17:38

And it was a church-going household, so it would have been.

Ronnie Corbett7:39

Very church going, my dad, yes. We all went to church every Sunday morning, dressed up in our kilts and uh we black brogues. We walked from uh Marchmont to College Street Church. Wasn't the sort of John Knox kind of church of Scotland, but I suppose by today's standard it would be duo seeming, yes.

Speaker 17:59

Tell me about your next piece of news.

Ronnie Corbett8:00

The next record well, the next record is of my father again. I keep talking about my dad. My mum of course played a huge part as well, but he used to take us to the Usher Hall to see very often the Glasgow Orpheus Choir. And this hymn was sung at all our christenings and at my mum and dad's funeral, so it's been really part of our

Ronnie Corbett8:25

church singing forever and in the hands of the Glasgow Orphies Choir, I think it just sounds rather lovely.

Speaker 19:31

The Glasgow Orpheus Choir and by Cool Siloen's Shady Rill. As a little boy then at school you said that you you went to things, you were a doer, but you were a little in the background. Yes. I mean and what was that anything to do with the fact you were a small boy?

Ronnie Corbett9:41

I mean

Ronnie Corbett9:44

Well, funnily enough, I don't remember ever being worried about my lack of height not growing up. My auntie worried more than me, I thought or they may have sensed that I was a bit more concerned that I was letting on. But I don't I never s suffered from bullying or anything at school, but I just think I wa probably lacked a little bit of um

Ronnie Corbett10:08

confidence missing because of it, although it didn't I wasn't so angst about it, you know.

Speaker 110:13

What what age would you have been when they were conscious that you'd sort of stopped growing as you should have been?

Ronnie Corbett10:17

Well, w well, my aunt sent away for this course, of course, you know, two guineas for a magazine, and I had to s repeat every day, every day, and every way I'm getting taller and taller, and stick a pin in the wall, and well, all you were doing was stretching yourself, actually. So that didn't work. And then my mum took me to a child specialist in Murray Place, Edinburgh, so she must have worried about it but there was no kind of congenital serious problem to worry about, so I suppose they were worried more than me really.

Speaker 110:46

It's interesting because it it's a cliche, but of course, like most clichés, it it parts of it at least are true, that that small men are often perceived at least as being sort of, you know, chippy or a bit aggressive or having to prove something you seem like the least chippy man on earth. I mean, it seems as though it hasn't really made much impression upon you.

Ronnie Corbett10:56

Oh yeah.

Ronnie Corbett11:00

I mean it seems as though

Ronnie Corbett11:02

No, it hasn't to really

Speaker 111:03

Yeah.

Ronnie Corbett11:05

Yes, uh five foot one, that's right. It hasn't uh well, it it's been the cornerstone, of course. Of course, I'm fortunate in that it's been the cornerstone of my s success and life really, that I've taken full advantage of it. I always think I'm the last person to seem to feel I'm small. I'm behaving everywhere like an extremely tall, normal person.

Speaker 111:28

Which, of course, when you're working, only contributes to the comedy. This idea that somebody inspired me.

Speaker 111:38

Tom

Ronnie Corbett11:38

The next record is ah well, Mel Tormy I have listened to all my life since I bought my first

Ronnie Corbett11:48

my own Wii Record player and I had Mel Tormy, uh big LP, in a Blue World it was called, and I've listened to everything Mel Tormi ever sang. I just love him. And um

Ronnie Corbett12:01

Here he is with the Marty Page dectet and uh I love him singing with it.

Speaker 412:07

We kissed a gang and

Speaker 412:09

As the showers swept the Florida shore.

Speaker 412:14

You open your umbrella We walk between the raindrops back to your door

Speaker 412:24

Walk between the raindrops back to your door

Ronnie Corbett12:36

Lovely thought, isn't it? Open your umbrella, walk between the railroads, back to your door. It's lovely.

Speaker 112:41

That was Mel Tourme and the Marty Page Dectet and Walk Between the Raindrops. So after that triumph as a teenager in Babes in the Wood in the church hall, you knew it was performing and you

Ronnie Corbett12:49

Yeah.

Speaker 112:52

You came to London beginning of the fifties, nineteen fifty one, coming with your post office savings account with what was it, ninety odd. Ninety one pounds in it. Wh where were you living when you first came to London?

Ronnie Corbett12:59

£81.

Ronnie Corbett13:03

Well, I was very fortunate because in the Air Force I met my dearest friend, Ted Hardwick, and his mum, Pixie, uh was an actress, Pixie Picard, and she was a darling person and she sort of sponsored me and encouraged me and I had a sort of flat in the uh lower part of the house. I hesitated to go to the basement'cause she wouldn't want to put me in the basement

Speaker 113:30

The Garden Flat.

Ronnie Corbett13:31

And garden flat, that's it, absolutely.

Speaker 113:35

Did you then get a window on a bit of a Shobi's life? Was Pixie's life rather fabulous?

Ronnie Corbett13:37

It was pictured.

Ronnie Corbett13:39

Absolutely. She was very kind of well, you know, regarded and thought of and connected because her brother ran the Cafe de Paris. So E Edward and I said and I used to go and see Coward's opening night there or uh Carl Brisson or Jack Buchanan, El Salanchester doing cabaret there. So, I mean, I did have a

Ronnie Corbett14:00

A window on to the world, as you say.

Speaker 114:03

In your early days of performing, you you played at Danny LaRue's club, is that right? In the sort of early hours, I mean, midnights. Oh, yes.

Ronnie Corbett14:09

What was your ad?

Speaker 114:12

What was your at?

Ronnie Corbett14:12

Well, it wasn't an an act in those days. You see, people you Brian Blackburn, Barry Crow, these sort of boys, wrote little sort of reviews. And we would have four or six quite glamorous girls who come on from the talk of the town, and then a cast of about three or four, including Danny or Barbara Windsor, Victor Spinetti, myself, and that kind of and you put on a little show that lasted about an hour, you see, at one o'clock in the morning.

Speaker 114:38

You met, as you say, Anne Hart, who was to become your wife, a fellow actor and singer. Was it an immediate attraction?

Ronnie Corbett14:44

Well it well, it was, yes. Um it was it was c it was sort of complicated really because um Anne was married at the time, so we were very good friends.

Ronnie Corbett14:56

in the nicest possible way, uh proper possible way, to for about five or six years.

Speaker 115:02

Through the five or six years, did did you always hold a flame for her? Was there

Ronnie Corbett15:06

Uh there was, yes, a sort of little t twinkle, then it, you know, burst out into full flower. They I don't suppose we were thinking, I didn't think about it.

Ronnie Corbett15:16

being naughty with somebody who was married, um, as one didn't so much in those days. And, um, there was a turning point. One New Year's Eve, uh something happened and turned there was a t there's there was a turn round in the relationship and one knew that, you know

Speaker 115:31

Right.

Ronnie Corbett15:34

It was very serious from my point of view, and I think promoted.

Speaker 115:37

Uh you were wooing a lady who was I mean, how many inches taller than?

Ronnie Corbett15:41

Oh yes, well uh almost everybody I have wooed has been so many interest already.

Speaker 115:41

Moe

Ronnie Corbett15:46

Uh yes, I suppose Anne is about five foot eight or nine, yes.

Speaker 115:51

Right, so she's seven or eight inches taller than you. That didn't bother you, didn't bother her.

Ronnie Corbett15:53

Yeah, that doesn't pull the

Ronnie Corbett15:55

No, it didn't bother her, and it didn't bother me then. Probably the first time that it didn't bother me. But it didn't bother me with Anne, and it hasn't done since.

Speaker 116:05

Yeah.

Ronnie Corbett16:05

Uh

Speaker 116:05

Tell me about your next piece of music.

Ronnie Corbett16:06

The next piece of music is oh, my goodness me, yes, dear Dan, Danny LaRue, who has been part of, as I said, our lives for so long, a godfather to one of our daughters.

Ronnie Corbett16:19

And of course he's been the cornerstone of our um

Ronnie Corbett16:23

our emergence really, because David Frost used to come to Winston's and see me at Winston's and used to come to Danny's and see us at Dan's. So um it was a wonderful window to be seen in at the West End, the little clubs like that that got the reputation of being not only slightly satirical and witty and clever and classy, but glamorous.

Ronnie Corbett16:42

In everything that's light and gay.

Ronnie Corbett16:46

Uh

Speaker 416:46

I'll always think of you that way.

Speaker 416:50

I'll find you in the morning sun.

Speaker 416:55

And when the knife is new

Speaker 416:59

I'll be looking at the mo

Speaker 417:03

But I'll be seeing.

Speaker 117:10

Danny LaRue and I'll be seeing you again.

Ronnie Corbett17:12

Yeah, wonderful sort of time between his voice and that little song. We just love him singing it.

Speaker 117:17

You were married then in nineteen sixty five. You had your first baby, and that of of course ought to have been a very joyous occasion. It turned out to be far from that.

Ronnie Corbett17:25

Five.

Speaker 117:27

Andrew was just was he just weeks old when he died?

Ronnie Corbett17:30

Wix

Ronnie Corbett17:32

Yes, um uh a very alarming call we had. Uh I had because I think I was still in

Ronnie Corbett17:40

The hospital at St Thomas's and the nursing sister rang up and said, We've got a bit of a concern when you come down and they noticed there was a sort of heart problem. Um his heart was actually all on the wrong side of his body, but that one itself wasn't serious. It not it wouldn't have been as serious now, of course, um and uh they uh tried to do a little operation but um it didn't work and we lost him six weeks uh six weeks old yeah.

Speaker 118:06

You went on to have two daughters who were healthy, though, and Sam was.

Ronnie Corbett18:08

Yes. Elsie though, Anne. Yes, Anne was very brave. W she uh w we had two daughters, one the next April and then and Sophie the following April, so she had two babies in

Ronnie Corbett18:20

Two years.

Speaker 118:20

And what about Anne giving up her career? As I said, I mean she was very well regarded. I've looked at critiques of her performances, saying that she was uh this great star in the making. She decided that she was going to shelve that and and going to be a mother.

Ronnie Corbett18:28

No waking

Ronnie Corbett18:33

Yes, indeed, yes. But I think she felt, particularly having lost Andrew, that she was going to be m very seriously devoted to caring for the children when young. But uh she did m miss it, naturally miss it. Perhaps not as much as she would have missed it if she had been more confident within herself. So part of her for for the amount of chutzpah or bravery I had, she had a similar amount of insecurity, really. Uh so it was a bit of a relief for her in one respect, but uh it was a terrible waste because she was enormously clever, you know.

Speaker 119:11

Now, in those early married days, in the relentless way of these things, after you'd lost Andrew at at such a young age.

Speaker 119:18

your career began to well, I mean, it was it was a fundamental building block for your career because as you said before the last piece of music, David Frost had seen you perform and approached you to appear in the Frost Report.

Ronnie Corbett19:27

But

Ronnie Corbett19:29

Absolutely. When David Frost uh asked me to do the Frost report, that was um that was the big turning point.

Speaker 119:36

The sketch that sticks in everybody's mind, of course, is is well, let's call it the class sketch. I don't know. Did it have a name, that sketch?

Ronnie Corbett19:40

Yeah.

Speaker 119:43

Um I think you've just found it then which is of course the one with John Cleese standing as the tallest and best dressed participant in the sketch, Ronnie Barker in the middle, and you in a cloth cap and a scarf.

Ronnie Corbett19:45

Let's call it a little bit.

Ronnie Corbett19:51

Just adventure.

Ronnie Corbett19:54

And a scarf. That's right. I remember recording it. Well, I thought it was very cleverly and aptly done, uh but looking down at him, looking up at me and I look and uh and quite nicely punctured at the end. Uh

Speaker 120:08

It's that I get a sore neck, isn't it? Yeah, I get a sore neck.

Ronnie Corbett20:09

It's that I get a sore neck, isn't it? Yeah, I get a sore neck, that's right. Thank you very much. I was going to draw I forgot what I'd said, but you'd kindly remembered. But I d I d I didn't I didn't uh expect it to last all this time, I must say.

Speaker 120:21

Tell me about your next piece of music then.

Ronnie Corbett20:22

The next piece of music, well of course, is Darling Anne, who as I've already said, I mean gave up so much of her life and her talent and she still sings rem remarkably well to this day and sadly uh gave it up really, but as I say it wasn't a waste because she's brought up with her two lovely daughters and given herself to them and to me. This song, um Music Maestro Please, of course, has a double interest because dear Bud Flanagan, who we both adored watching and who Anne worked with because she was the leading lady for the last two crazy gang shows. So here it is.

Speaker 421:03

Him so I But there I go tonight I mustn't think

Speaker 421:13

Him no more.

Speaker 421:17

Horries swing up tonight. I must forget.

Speaker 421:26

Music, mysterious

Ronnie Corbett21:32

They worked out indeed.

Speaker 121:33

Very well done. Hitting every note and then some. That was Anne Hart. Yeah. Your wife singing music, maestro, please. Yes. Let's talk then about the two Ronnies. For so many years that the cornerstone of Saturday night entertainment it began in nineteen seventy one. Do you remember recording the first show?

Ronnie Corbett21:34

And having

Ronnie Corbett21:36

Yeah.

Ronnie Corbett21:49

I do remember recording the first show. Um Ronnie and I, having been, I suppose, in the business for so long, sat down and worked out what the shape of a show would be. And we worked on the idea that the news items would be jokes that we would both do to the audience, but of course not speak to each other in the same way as Eric and I, because that's something we hadn't really built up a strength on. So we did the news item, we did sketches and we decided that we'd do an item each. Ronnie would be a sort of character built single, and I would do my thing in the chair, just talking cozily.

Speaker 122:25

And it seemed, of course, watching it like it was tremendous fun, all this dressing up and the locations you went to, and the songs, and the sets. Presumably huge hard work went with that.

Ronnie Corbett22:31

Cases

Ronnie Corbett22:34

Present.

Ronnie Corbett22:36

Yes, but tremendous fun as well, you see, because we were never we were so well prepared, we never rushed into anything. So you could enjoy it because you were looking forward to doing something you were proud to be doing, really.

Speaker 122:51

And Ronny wrote You Never.

Ronnie Corbett22:52

I never wrote, no. I mean, I can sort of put things together to suit myself, kind of thing. But Ronnie wrote. Ronnie was writing before that because Ronnie was we went through that wonderful period when he wrote as Gerald Wiley, the Gerald Wiley incident, when nobody knew who Gerald Wiley was and we were appreciating all the stuff and the skill with which it was coming together. And Ronnie said, Well, I think this Gerald Wiley chap is looked after by my agent. And he said, I think he's either a well-known novelist or he's like Beverly Nicholls or even Tom Stoppard's name was even mentioned. I mean, all sorts of people were mentioned as being possible Gerald Wileys. And then on the last Sunday night at London Weekend Television, we were told that Gerald Wiley was going to appear. He had incidentally written a sketch for me and suggested Ronnie had said, You ought to get onto Gerald Wiley's agent and buy the rights of that, because it would suit you very much in concert party. So I said, Well, I'll do that. I'll get on the phone tomorrow. And then he came back. How much did they want? He said, Well, I said he wants three thousand pounds for the oh, God tell him. And then eventually the message came from Gerald Wiley's office that he is going to give you the rights of the sketch in perpetuity for the way you've done it. So I thought it was very lovely. So I had some cut glass we've done with Gerald Wiley. Anyway, this Sunday night.

Speaker 124:12

So you sent those glasses off not knowing they were going to Ronnie Parker.

Ronnie Corbett24:14

Not the going to Ronald Barkham. And on the Sunday night after the last show at Landa Weekend, we were all going to have a Chinese meal, and Gerald Wiley was going to grace us with his presence. So we were all at this table, Michael Palin and John Cleese, and all David Frost, and the seat was left there for Gerald Wiley to attend. And Ronney stood up and said, Ladies and gentlemen, I just want to know that the chair is going to remain occupied because I am, in fact, Gerald Wiley. And somebody who should be nameless said, Nobody likes a smart ass.

Ronnie Corbett24:50

And so, Gerald Wiley, of Review.

Speaker 124:53

Tell me about your next piece of music.

Ronnie Corbett24:55

Record. Oh well, I listen to most of my music in the car really. Uh as when I can find it, as you know, I have a record of not being able to find L P s. Uh I l love this the show, Condide, and I love the thrilling overture w written by Bernstein.

Speaker 125:42

Part of the Overture to Condide written by Leonard Bernstein and recorded live on Broadway in December 1956.

Speaker 125:49

Earlier on, Ronnie Corbett, we were saying that you knew no fear, that you sort of embarked on a a life and embraced it, and and indeed that was the case in your showbiz career. But there there was a point on stage where you did know fear. You you were gripped by

Ronnie Corbett25:55

Uh

Speaker 425:55

And indeed

Speaker 126:02

Yeah. Well, d explain it to me. It's difficult to understand.

Ronnie Corbett26:02

What?

Ronnie Corbett26:03

Yeah, it's a good idea.

Ronnie Corbett26:05

Yes. Well, Ron and I were uh doing this very successful uh season at the Palladium, Twelve Weeks, two Ronnies and one Saturday afternoon I suddenly got a balance problem when I was on the stage.

Ronnie Corbett26:19

And it was quite frightening, because it only happened it didn't happen in every day life. At the moment I had to stand in the darkened wings and look out at that journey to the middle of the stage on a shiny black floor. The thought of falling over was ever present.

Speaker 126:35

Did you worry that you would never perform on stage again?

Ronnie Corbett26:37

Yes, it put me off performing, really. It put me off the theatre to its damage to the fun I used to get. It it wore you out, you know.

Speaker 126:45

It was uh nineteen eighty six when Ronnie Barker told you that he wanted to stop doing the two Ronnies. How did that conversation go?

Ronnie Corbett26:51

The hot

Ronnie Corbett26:53

Uh but Ron and I were breakfasting in our wee caravan and we were filming uh our um Norsemen. What do you call the people? Norsemen, you know. Vikings. Vikings, that's the word, thank you very much. A Viking sketch. But he was the gormless one. Uh forget he was very funny, as the absolute gormless one. But I was quite a strong bossy leader of the Viking gang. But we were sitting having our breakfast, and he said, I better tell you, Ron, I've been thinking about this, and what with one thing or another, my wee health scare I've had, I am going to retire after the Christmas show after next. Well, it was very sweet of him to give me so much notice. It wasn't going to damage me seriously. We're going to stop doing the two Ronnie's. I think we both realised it was getting more and more difficult to find material, so it was perhaps an apt and proper time to do it.

Speaker 127:04

Vikings

Speaker 127:46

Uh your last show together then as the two Ronnies was the Christmas special in nineteen eighty seven. How did you celebrate the end of an era?

Ronnie Corbett27:49

So

Ronnie Corbett27:52

Well, you'd be surprised, really. It was pretty sad, but we went and celebrated in our usual customary modest family way. Joy and Ronnie and Ann and I went and had an Indian curry in Westbourne Grove. But that was something and that was it. Uh but of course the that has been really uh overshadowed by

Speaker 128:04

That was something weird.

Ronnie Corbett28:12

His last when we did the sketchbook, and he was really weakened.

Speaker 128:16

That was in 2005.

Ronnie Corbett28:18

Yes. And when he said goodbye that night and

Ronnie Corbett28:22

The tears came to his eyes and gave to mine.

Speaker 128:26

And he knew at that stage as you were recording those programmes, and you knew that he was very ill by that stage.

Ronnie Corbett28:30

By extinction.

Speaker 128:31

Yeah.

Speaker 128:33

And this show was where you came together again in 2005 and you sat behind an approximation of the sort of music that you used to.

Ronnie Corbett28:38

Yes, that's right. And did jokes again and introduced clips of stuff we'd done before, but we were there all the time and they were lovely and it and it and it was a very easy, easy way to do it.

Speaker 128:50

Tell me about your next piece of music then.

Ronnie Corbett28:52

This goes back, ee, this artist, Bobby Short, goes back.

Ronnie Corbett28:57

Oh, a long way. Uh I saw him at the Pizza on the Park when he came over here this season, but uh he was always a chic, the gentleman was, Bobby Shaw. But he has been in my heart for a long time. I mean, he's so musical, and of course it's wonderful when somebody sings sings to you and plays the piano and doesn't have to look at the keyboard or the piano, he's looking out there all the time and playing effortlessly. And I love listening to it.

Speaker 429:22

Say that I like the likes of you.

Speaker 429:28

Your looks are pure looks

Speaker 429:32

Looks like highlight the likes of you.

Ronnie Corbett29:52

Only last week.

Ronnie Corbett29:53

Uh Anne and I stayed at the Carlisle where Bobby Short worked and we were very thrilled to find that they m put a little sign up on the street the Carlisle is on, which is I think seventy six or something. They've called it now Bobby Short Place.

Speaker 130:09

So that w you'd chosen Bobby Short, which I like the likes of you. And as you went into it there, you said something that that caught me and caught my imagination. You said he's terribly chic.

Ronnie Corbett30:11

Yes, sir.

Speaker 130:17

Now you're no slouch yourself in the clothes departments, I notice. I mean today you're in a sort of mint green cashmere number with a beautiful overcoat folded over the chair. I mean you take a great joy in in your appearance and in choosing the right clothes.

Ronnie Corbett30:19

I noticed

Ronnie Corbett30:25

Yeah.

Ronnie Corbett30:31

Yes, yes, yes. I di I mean, I don't fuss over them, but I know a bit of colour is quite quite nice.

Speaker 130:38

And some very natty cufflings. Oh, natty cufflings.

Ronnie Corbett30:38

Yeah.

Ronnie Corbett30:39

Oh, Natty Cuffling's from also from New York. I treated myself from Berghoff Goodman in New York. Yeah.

Speaker 130:45

When I was introducing you to day, I used a phrase that I I really would not ordinarily use, which is a national treasure. Now it's it's very easy to use that phrase in the wrong place, but I think it does apply to you. You are one of those people, and there probably are only a handful of them, who walking down the street, people sort of feel as if they own a little part of you.

Ronnie Corbett31:04

Hmm.

Speaker 131:06

Is that tricky?

Ronnie Corbett31:07

Um

Ronnie Corbett31:08

No, it's very, very touchy actually. Um

Ronnie Corbett31:13

As I think about the feeling, you see how tears are coming to my eyes. About two weeks ago I was walking down the street and a taxi driver passed.

Ronnie Corbett31:21

lowered his window.

Ronnie Corbett31:24

kissed the palm of his hand and blew the kiss.

Ronnie Corbett31:28

Towards me now that is really touching.

Ronnie Corbett31:31

really moving, you know.

Ronnie Corbett31:33

That sort of affection is

Ronnie Corbett31:36

you know, very, very lovely and to be treasured, really, so I love it, really.

Speaker 131:41

And and what about you, given the companionship that you've had with Anne over these uh forty or so years, and given the public recognition and the success of your career, how would you be on your own? How would you be on a desert island, do you think? Could you survive it?

Ronnie Corbett31:55

Oh, I don't think I'd be very, very good. I'd um en I'd j I'd enjoy the first afternoon perhaps. I think I'd be quite practical. I'd try to make the best of it. I maybe might be quite good at catching fish and cooking them. But I wouldn't be happy.

Speaker 132:11

So you could rustle up a nice bit of fish on the island, maybe without the breadcrumbs as you used to enjoy it.

Ronnie Corbett32:13

We would like the breadcrumbs as we used to enjoy it.

Speaker 132:16

Tell tell me about your final record then.

Ronnie Corbett32:18

My final re oh, well, yeah, uh, Tony Newley, who was a dear friend and, um, who I met when I was in a film.

Ronnie Corbett32:28

Top of the form when we were all schoolboys. And I love his music, I love his singing, and he wrote this with, I think, Leslie Brickers. And um, I just love his voice.

Speaker 432:41

That face is just a miracle.

Speaker 432:45

How could I ever find words to say the way that it makes me happy? Whatever the time or place, I'll find in the book what I find when I look at that place.

Speaker 133:07

Antony Newley, and look at that face, loving every moment. We come to the part of the programme there where I offer you the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare, and you are allowed to take one other book. What will that book be?

Ronnie Corbett33:18

Well, I think I've taken it because it's on my bedside and I've read about ten or eleven pages of it so far and I might as well k carry on reading it. Um Alan Bennett's Untold Stories, which uh I l uh I'm loving. Um well, I've read more than ten pages, that's a lie. Um but I would take that.

Speaker 133:35

You may have that and, of course, to make life more bearable a luxury.

Ronnie Corbett33:38

Well, I think I'll perhaps have a rather attractively designed, very comfortable hammock, and I'll string it between two palm trees and lounge there and read Alan Bennett.

Speaker 133:50

You may have that. And uh if I were to force you, and I am going to force you, to choose just one disc, which one would it be?

Ronnie Corbett33:57

Well, of course I have to take dear Anne singing music myself.

Speaker 134:03

Why do you say you'd have to? Is that because there'll be trouble if you don't choose that?

Ronnie Corbett34:05

Well, there will be a bit of trouble if I don't, but it would seem eminently wrong, uh disgracefully wrong, not to take a record of somebody I've spent so much of my time gloriously with.

Speaker 134:18

Ronnie Corbett, thank you very much for letting us see all your Desert Island discs.

Ronnie Corbett34:21

May I watch?

Speaker 134:29

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.