TEARS AND LAUGHTER IN TOUCHING TRIBUTE TO RONNIE
IN the solemnity of Westminster Abbey, four candles burned yesterday in memory of comic Ronnie Corbett.
That’s four candles – not “fork handles” – a confusion which was key to one of his best-loved sketches.
And friends and colleagues turned out in force to bid “good night from them”, echoing his famous catchphrase.
The late star’s widow Anne, who was married to the entertainer for 50 years, was joined at the thanksgiving service by a host of stars.
Dame Barbara Windsor, Joanna Lumley, Jimmy Tarbuck, Nicholas Parsons, Barry Cryer, David Walliams, Graham Norton, Ben Elton and Stephen Fry all attended.
The Duchess of York was there representing the Duke of York.
And comedy star Rob Brydon spoke at the service, recalling his friendship and golfing partnership with Corbett.
Known for his impeccable impression of the late star, he said in a moving speech: “Becoming friends with this remarkable man who I had admired for as long as I can remember was truly one of the great pleasures of my life.”
Sir Bruce Forsyth’s wife Wilnelia, 59, was also there, though her 89-year-old husband – who has been battling illhealth – was absent.
There was as much laughter as tears as tributes were paid to Corbett, who died last year at the age of 85 following a secret battle with motor neurone disease.
Dame Barbara said of the 5ft 1in star: “He was very special. And we had a lot in common. We were both little.”
Ms Lumley said of the service: “He would be delighted and amazed.”
Tarbuck added: “I think he would have loved to be here. He loved a party. Ronnie was a poet of comedy and when a poet dies he leaves us with the laughter.”
Despite his stature, the pint-sized star was “10ft of comedic talent”, he said.
He joked that when Corbett was an RAF officer, “he got his uniform from Mothercare”.
He said he once told Corbett when they were meeting the Queen: “Don’t bow too low or she won’t be able to see you.”
Tarbuck added: “He never received a knighthood and I could never understand why. I’m taking the opportunity to make him a knight. All those in favour say ‘Aye’.” He received a warm response.
Several of Corbett’s most humorous moments were replayed to the Westminster Abbey gathering.
They included the Four Candles sketch from The Two Ronnies which saw confusion reign when TV partner Ronnie Barker approached Corbett in a hardware store asking to buy “fork handles”.
Another was the “class satire” sketch which saw Corbett, Barker and 6ft 5in John Cleese standing next to one another, their radically different heights supposedly reflecting the social classes they were from, with tiny Corbett firmly representing the cloth-capped workers.
Corbett’s trademark armchair, from which he would deliver TV monologue jokes, was placed “centre stage” in Westminster Abbey in his memory.
Prayers were read by his daughters Emma Corbett and Sophie Corbett-Grahame, and grandson Tom Corbett.
The Very Reverend Dr John Hall, Dean of Westminster, gave thanks to the “comic genius that gave immeasurable joy to countless people”.
Corbett, made a CBE in 2012, became a household name as half of The Two Ronnies. The show – which pulled in up to 22 million viewers on a Saturday night – ran for 16 years on the BBC.
‘When he joined the RAF, he got his uniform from Mothercare’
to ban companies from bidding for public contracts unless the ratio of the pay of their highest-paid employee to that of their lowest-paid employee is lower than 20:1.
If company executives aren’t allowed to pay themselves so much, they won’t be paying so much tax, will they? Time and again it has been shown that jacking up tax rates fails to raise the expected revenue. Take the soft drinks levy, income from which appears in Labour’s costings.
Drinks companies are already reformulating their products so they won’t be liable for the tax – which was exactly the point of it in the first place, to reduce the sugar content of fizzy drinks. As for plans to renationalise entire industries, that doesn’t appear in Labour’s manifesto as public spending at all – Corbyn is trying the same trick as Gordon Brown did, spiriting spending commitments off the books by classifying them as investment.
Neither does his promise to abandon plans to raise the pension age above 66 appear anywhere as a cost – even though it would cost billions over the years. Where it took Gordon Brown 13 years to ruin the public finances, Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell would achieve the same in six months. We know what lies that way:
WE COULD have a prime minister who has been persuaded, against his will, to commit to the renewal of the Trident nuclear deterrent but who has pretty well told the world he wouldn’t press the button even if Britain was itself attacked with nuclear weapons.
I am sure that Kim Jong-un will have been listening with great interest. The whole point of a deterrent is that potential enemies have to believe that you would use it.
How absurd that Corbyn is now posing as the candidate who would be tough on terror – this a man who has opposed virtually every piece of antiterror legislation brought before the House of Commons since 9/11. He has also sought to politically exploit the reduction in overall police numbers in recent years. And yet his plan for 10,000 more community officers will do little to stop terrorists when what we really need are armed units with the authority to use their guns.
Corbyn’s problem is that he has a romantic attraction to any Left-wing cause. He has supported terror groups because he wants to think of them as freedom fighters. He has programmed himself always to see large businesses as enemies of the people. The same is true of the other members of his inner circle: people such as John McDonnell and Diane Abbott.
They are really just overgrown student politicians whose desire to change the world is not matched by a corresponding sense of responsibility. Were they campaigning to run a student union it would be worrying enough but the thought of them running the country should chill us all. It must not happen.
‘Hard-Left would take Britain backwards’