One final goodnight

While the others could gain a sense of superiority by looking down on Corbett, he was left with a pain in his neck having to look up to them

Ronnie Corbett (right) with comedic partner Ronnie Barker in 1969 (Getty)

Ronnie Corbett, who died yesterday, was sometimes undervalued as a comedian. His partner in comedy, Ronnie Barker, enjoyed greater success in his solo endeavours and for a period Corbett seemed to be regarded as the lesser of the two. That impression had been largely corrected in recent years and on his death yesterday the tributes to his talent were numerous and genuine.

Corbett got his big break when David Frost spotted him and asked him to join the cast of The Frost Report. It was there that he met Ronnie Barker and the duo went on to dominate television screens in a way that is difficult to imagine today (although Ant and Dec might beg to differ). At its peak The Two Ronnies, which aired on BBC1 from 1971 to 1987, achieved an audience of 17million – in the modern vernacular, it was ‘event TV’.

If Corbett remained content throughout his career to poke fun at himself, and especially at his height, it was his perfect timing which made him stand out from other comedians. For all that the famous Four Candles sketch relied on Barker’s central play on words, it was Corbett’s growing frustration and perfectly timed responses which made it work as a six-minute sketch. Sure enough, there was something rather neat about Corbett passing away on the day before April 1^st.

During his stint on The Frost Report Corbett provided the payoff to a sketch in which he played the working-class scrapper to Ronnie Barker’s middle-class man and John Cleese’s superior gent. While the others could gain a sense of superiority by looking down on Corbett, he was left with a pain in his neck having to look up to them. As yesterday’s reaction to the news of his death showed, Corbett the comedian was, in fact, almost universally looked up to both by other comics and an adoring public.