I read yesterday in a Dutch paper that Ronnie Barker has died aged 76. Ronnie was one of the great British Comic Actors. Excellent as incarcerated con, Norman Fletcher, and hilarious in his various sketch guises with long-term cohort, Ronnie Corbett. Their sketches often had a kind of cleverness to them that most sketches do not. They tended to rely on characterisation rather than strings of jokes or crudity. Some of the best sketches were when Ronnie B would be the spokesperson for some organision or other orator with a particular typing or speech impediment such as b's replaced by p's, etc.
This is not an obituary, just a heads-up for those of you who who didn't know the man or that he had died. In either case, try and find something to watch in his honour. Perhaps one of the TV specials that played in the Uk in later years. Any of the great character roles. Or the series... Not "Clarence", but definitely "Porridge" or "Open All Hours."
This is not an obituary, just a heads-up for those of you who who didn't know the man or that he had died. In either case, try and find something to watch in his honour. Perhaps one of the TV specials that played in the Uk in later years. Any of the great character roles. Or the series... Not "Clarence", but definitely "Porridge" or "Open All Hours."
"And it's goodbye from him."
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