No Small Talent

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Personal opinion this. Probably sounds—or maybe is— a little churlish and insensitive, but I rarely found the late Ronnie Corbett very funny. His interaction with Ronnie Barker on The Two Ronnies was always admired, but I felt that Barker was by far the funnier of the two and a much greater talent. By contrast Corbett’s prolonged solo monologue (forgive the tautology, I am making a point), was for me the low point of the show; it somehow seemed more a nod to ego than entertainment. You may disagree, and I know of at least one Fryday reader who has posted a moving tribute to Ronnie Corbett on Facebook, and may well ask why I am writing anything if it is so negative. Well, the reason I am doing it is that I am paying tribute, in my own way, to Ronnie Corbett—in much the same way I paid tribute to Ernie Wise—and for the same reason. They may not have been as funny as their comedy partners—Barker and Eric Morecambe, respectively— but nor would Morecambe and Barker be quite so funny as they were without the formidable and often self-depreciating skills of their “straight men.” I am sure Corbett never thought himself a straight man when he was performing with—and for—Barker. But maybe he did so later; there is a lovely, but slightly sad scene, in Ricky Gervais’s wonderful Extras. In it, supposedly at the Bafta Awards, Corbett unmercifully takes the mickey out of himself, playing himself as a cocaine-snorting washed up comedian found in a toilet cubicle by Gervais. When they, along with Steven Merchant, are discovered and confronted by security we have a classic putdown by the security chief: “Corbett—it’s always bloody Corbett.” You can view the scene here. Ironically, and skilfully, the scene is played by Corbett with a straight face and the far greater put-down is the one he self-inflicts—brilliantly.  That show, that scene, that face shows to me—in its own small way (pun intended)— what a giant talent Ronnie Corbett really was.