British comedy great

1930-2016

RONNIE Corbett, the comedian who has died aged 85, achieved such fame as one of the Two Ronnies in the TV show of the same name that his solo career was often eclipsed.

Only 1.55m, Corbett maintained that after he became a professional comedian he had no regrets about being so small. His height had been the making of him, and he would make jokes about it as long as people thought his height was funny. Fortunately for him, they never stopped thinking it hilarious.

TV extended Corbett’s appeal. He had become a star in his own right before meeting Ronnie Barker, but The Two Ronnies (1971-1987) remained the zenith of a TV career that lasted more than 40 years.

Corbett’s singular contribution to The Two Ronnies was his weekly monologue, with a preamble such as: “I actually found this joke in an old Reader’s Digest in-between an article called ‘Having Fun with a Hernia’ and a story about a woman who brought up a family of four with one hand, while waiting for Directory Enquiries.”

With weekly audiences in the UK of some 17 million, their programme achieved top rating throughout the ’70s.

Ronald Balfour Corbett was born in Edinburgh on December 4 1930. Initially his lack of height created an awkwardness he was not to overcome for some years. An aunt paid two guineas for a course called “How to Become Taller”, which involved stretching exercises and a daily repetition of the mantra “Every day and in every way I’m getting taller and taller”. He did not.

In the Royal Air Force his friendship with the son of an actor encouraged him to think about show business as a career.

Corbett’s big chance came when he was spotted by David Frost at Winston’s nightclub, and cast in his BBC show The Frost Report (1966-67), followed by Frost on Sunday (1968-69). It was with Frost that he first teamed up with Barker.

Corbett’s films included No Sex Please, We’re British (1973).

Along with Barker, he was appointed OBE in 1978 (advanced to CBE in 2012) and, after his death this week, it was revealed that he was to have been knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in June.

It was also revealed that he had been suffering from motor neurone disease for a year.

Corbett married Anne Hart in 1965. She survives him with their two daughters. A son born in 1966 died at the age of six weeks. — ©

It involved the mantra ‘Every day and in every way I’m getting taller and taller’