Canada’s dry humourist
QUESTION What are the origins of the Four Yorkshiremen incorrectly attributed to Monty Python?
THE Four Yorkshiremen became a worldwide hit when it was performed live at the Hollywood Bowl in 1982.
It featured the classic Python line-up of Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Graham Chapman and Terry Jones in a skit during which their Yorkshire characters made increasingly hilarious claims about how tough they had it as kids. The sketch, parodying older people’s supposed fondness for deriding the comparatively luxurious lifestyles enjoyed by younger generations, has international resonances: in the mid-1990s, Hungarian comedy troupe Hollo Szinhaz translated and performed an adaptation of the sketch.
The Hollywood Bowl version was part-written by Pythons John Cleese and Graham Chapman with Tim Brooke-Taylor, and Marty Feldman. It was first performed on the At Last The 1948 Show TV series in 1967; the authors played the Yorkshiremen and Barry Cryer was the wine waiter. Ultimately, the inspiration came from a piece by turn-of-thecentury Canadian humourist Stephen Leacock (1869-1944).
Leacock’s comic works were based on the incongruity between appearance and reality in human conduct. These are best portrayed in his Sunshine Sketches Of A Little Town (1912), which gently mocked life in the fictional town of Mariposa, Ontario, and Arcadian Adventures With The Idle Rich (1914).
Sunshine Sketches featured the story Self-Made Men with a premise which was the same as the Four Yorkshiremen. Two men are seated in an expensive restaurant: ‘They were both what we commonly call successful businessmen – men with well-fed faces, heavy signet rings on fingers like sausages, and broad, comfortable waistcoats, a yard and a half round the equator.
‘Conversation drifts to their tough beginnings on the New York streets.
‘There ensues the familiar game of downupmanship: “No, sir, a fellow accustomed to luxury like you has simply no idea what sleeping out in a tar barrel and all that kind of thing is like.” ’
Later we have: ‘Many’s the time I’ve breakfasted off a little cold porridge that somebody was going to throw away from a back-door, or that I’ve gone round to a livery stable and begged a little bran mash that they intended for the pigs.’
When the waiter comes to take their order: ‘ “Dinner!” said Jones, after a moment of silence, “dinner! Oh, anything, nothing – I never care what I eat – give me a little cold porridge, if you’ve got it, or a chunk of salt pork – anything you like, it’s all the same to me.” ’
The pair quickly change their mind: ‘ “Here, waiter,” he said with a savage scowl, “I guess I’ll change that order a little. Instead of that cold porridge I’ll take – um, yes – a little hot partridge. And you might as well bring me an oyster or two on the half shell, and a mouthful of soup (mock-turtle, consommé, anything), and perhaps you might fetch along a dab of fish, and a little peck of Stilton, and a grape, or a walnut.” ’ Colin Myers, Lincoln.
QUESTION Is Dante’s Divine Comedy supposed to be funny?
DANTE’S Divine Comedy (1320) described the author’s travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise or Heaven, while allegorically the poem represents the soul’s journey towards God. It redefined Western literature.
In Dante’s time (1265-1321) there were two classical forms of drama, Tragedy and Comedy. Tragedy was the high style, using the language of the Roman Empire and the Catholic Church – Latin – and were epics with a structured progression into a ‘tragic’ end.
Comedy was of the low style; productions were performed in the common vernacular and progressed from sadness into a happy ending. Dante’s work was a comedy because it had a happy ending; the hero reaches heaven. Tim Dale, London E13.
QUESTION Is there any evidence for the existence of Queen Maeve?
FURTHER to earlier answers, the ancient Celtic period in Irish history was remarkable in many ways, not least for the high regard in which women’s rights were regarded, far in advance of anything up until modern times. Celtic women were able to own property in their own name, hold powerful positions in society, and were free to act outside the monogamy of marriage.
The most widely read of the stories about her is the Táin Bó Cuailnge, the cattle raid of Cooley, the central epic of the Ulster cycle of Irish literature.
This story tells of the war waged on Ulster by Queen Maeve and her husband, Ailill. One of the precepts of ancient Celtic tradition was that whoever had the most wealth in a marriage, whether male or female, would become the dominant partner in that marriage.
On one occasion recorded by the storytellers of old, Maeve and Ailill were comparing their respective fortunes.
It turned out that Ailill had one possession that Maeve lacked, so he claimed to be the dominant partner. The missing item was a prize stud bull. She couldn’t find one anywhere in Connacht, but discovered one that belonged to Daire mac Fiochna in Ulster. Fiochna refused her offers of money and even her sexual favours, and wouldn’t sell the bull to Maeve.
She then waged war on Ulster to gain possession of the bull, but in the end, she and her husband were defeated in battle by Cú Chulainn, the hero of Ulster.
Eventually, Ailill’s bull was killed, but after Maeve had won possession of Fiochna’s bull, she became the dominant partner.
Both Maeve and her husband took new lovers, but each had each other’s lover killed. Then Maeve had her own husband murdered. Anna Carey, Co. Offaly.
IS THERE a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Irish Daily Mail, Embassy House, Herbert Park Lane, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. You can also fax them to 0044 1952 510906 or you can email them to charles.legge@dailymail.ie. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.