The Two Ronnies - The Best Of The Two Ronnies DVD

Having first worked together on The Frost Report back in 1966, writers Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett teamed up for their first BBC series in 1971, and The Two Ronnies commenced a 16-year run that yielded 12 series, plus Christmas specials--a total of 98 shows. In the process, they came to represent a distinctly old-fashioned style of British humour, more traditional, familiar and reassuring than the surrealism of Monty Python, or the inspired anarchy of The Goodies. Even the format was designed for minimum disruption, with virtually every episode following the same... pattern: opening and closing with the pair seated behind a desk, reading spoof news items, heavy on "blue" puns and spoonerisms (Barker's particular forte). In between, came various sketches (man-in-pub, man-at-party), mock-adventure serials with titles like "Death Can Be Fatal", a typically rambling monologue from Ronnie Corbett, and a climactic musical extravaganza--heavily indebted to Gilbert & Sullivan, and usually performed in drag. A haven for writers, both amateur and professional, the show attracted hundreds of submissions each week, with many of the news items selected only minutes before the start of recording. Though archaic by today's standards, it remains one of the best-loved and most quintessentially "English" of comedy series. --Andrew McGuire [show more]

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