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Ronnie Corbett dead: Revisit Four Candles, The Two Ronnies' greatest sketch

It's impossible not to cry with laughter at this classic 1976 skit

Jacob Stolworthy
Thursday 31 March 2016 12:28 BST
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The Two Ronnies - Four Candles

British entertainer Ronnie Corbett has passed away at the age of 85.

Comprising one-half of act The Two Ronnies alongside Ronnie Barker - who died in 2005 - the iconic comedic duo gave the world a large number of hilarious sketches between the years of 1971 and 1987.

No sketch was more iconic however than the inimitable Four Candles.

Originally airing in 1976, the skit sees Corbett play a hardware shopkeeper who becomes increasingly irate when he continually misunderstands what a customer (played by Barker) is requesting.

The scene begins with the customer asking for fork handles (Corbett's shopkeeper believing him to have requested four candles) and spirals into hilarity from there.

Bizarrely, the famous sketch - deemed one of comedy's greatest - was inspired by a real event that occurred in a hardware shop in Broadstairs, Kent; the shopkeepers submitted the scenario as possible sketch material.

We bet they never banked on it enduring as one of the duo's most loved skits.

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