RIP Ronnie Corbett

And it's good night now from them both...

A comedian and entertainer, surpassed perhaps only by the other half of the Ronnie Duet which so defines his legacy, I'm so sad to hear of his passing this morning.

Though many consider his career in terms of his work with the late Mr Barker, Ronnie Corbett was by far the better man in the conversational prose, his work with the audience from a simple seat in the post-light is quintessentially the definition of his comedic genius, and no-one can deliver quite like Ronnie did from that position.

His warmth, passion for entertainment, and quick-wit always shone through, and he'll be missed.

Yet another great gone in 2016.

RIP Rik Mayall

Alan B'Stard...

Lord Flashheart...

Richard Richard...

Today, the comic genious of Rik Mayall has passed onto that great arena in the sky, and I'm absolutely gutted.  He was one of those permanent and formative comedic characters in my childhood, adolescence and until his untimely knocking for six by a quad bike a big regular presence in my living landscape.

I've had the pleasure of seeing Rik live on stage in several iterations of Bottom!... And will always remember his terrible Norfolk-style accent as he tried to take the piss out of us "Nottingham"... "with your fucking tree and outlaws".

You'll be missed Rik, you clever, funny bastard you!

John George and Ringo go Deaf as Paul Warbles

I always loved Eric & Ernie, and though this item comes from a documentary about them, it shows something up in stark relief....

And that is that Paul McCartney actually can't sing very well, we all saw, or rather heard this at the Olympic opening in London, but since then I've seen him singing live and he seems to always get gushing reviews, its like he's  only getting reviewed by insane fanbois... or Yes men, and I mean this is getting embarrassing to him now, more so than the yes men George Lucas listened to about Jaja fucking binks.

Anyway, this still comes from the documentary about Eric & Ernie on the BBC, you can see this now for a bit on the BBC iPlayer, the first item of which was a skit with the Beatles...

And you'll see John and George singing just find, but Paul seems to just gap his gob open and closed, he's not singing the same words, of if he is his younger self has the same problem with his fat old cheeks as he has now, with them wobbling in the way of his warbling.

Ambassadors

What, it's over?  I really don't get this now, I missed the BBC advertising the advent of a new Mitchell & Webb creation, and then I slowly warmed to the series, not least because the funny bits were few and far between, but then as the guest turns appeared, the characters started to flesh out and the story started to unfold... puft its over.... 3 episodes?

Hmmm.... Not happy....

It tipped its hat to so many other BBC comedies, with the plot, the girls in underwear, the secret listening crew, to mention just a few.  I feel this needed a rounding of six episodes to solidly launch it.  I know other comedies used to get 30 minutes x 6, and this got 60 minutes x 3, so it received parity, but its political satire for it to expose the nerve and then tickle it into laughter took longer.

So I feel as though once established the series just went missing, indeed I spent a good while searching iPlayer and TV On Demand services looking for the episode this week which I assumed I missed... Only the Wikipedia entry set me straight as to their only being 3 episodes.

Mrs Goggins

Harry Enfield's turn as Jacks father on Bad Education was so funny... "Tried to keep a lid on it"... slayed me, I literally fell about laughing.