unearths some literary gems.
From Ronnie Corbett / David Nobbs:
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[RLG Dept.]
Writing in the Listener, that distinguished author Anthony Burgess... [said of the Ronnies], "They are a kind of visual epigram made out of the intellectual fact of human variety. This epigram is also a paradigm for conjugating social statements--about class, chiefly--with great neatness." I felt like phoning my dad in Scotland and saying, 'I've made it, Dad. Not only am I an epigram, I'm also a paradigm.
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[David Frost] behaved as if [The Frost Report] was a huge success, and it became so. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. In fact, looking back on it, David himself was a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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Another of our sketches.... was about a man who was paranoid about appearing on [This Is Your Life]. If the milkman or the postman came to the door, he was convinced that it was Eamonn Andrews with his big red book. In the end Eamonn turned up, and he didn't recognize him. [Cf. my story about "meeting" the guy from the Pixies in our parking lot last year. Or didn't I tell you that one?]
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We did a sketch in which Ronnie was Henry VIII, I was a camp, Jewish Cardinal Wolsey, with a large cigar and a costume with a twenty-yard train....
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Frank Muir, former Head of Comedy at the BBC and London Weekend, once said, "God preserve me from good ideas." It sounds strange, but I know what he meant. A good idea can become a straitjacket for comedy....
