COMEDY: THE TWO RONNIES - FOUR CANDLES

  

"THE FOUR CANDLES" SCRIPT

In a hardware shop. Ronnie Corbett is behind the counter, wearing a warehouse jacket. He has just finished serving a customer.
CORBETT (muttering): There you are. Mind how you go.
(Ronnie Barker enters the shop, wearing a scruffy tank-top and beanie)
BARKER: Four Candles!
CORBETT: Four Candles?
BARKER: Four Candles.
(Ronnie Corbett makes for a box, and gets out four candles. He places them on the counter)
BARKER: No, four candles!
CORBETT (confused): Well there you are, four candles!
BARKER: No, fork 'andles! 'Andles for forks!
(Ronnie Corbett puts the candles away, and goes to get a fork handle. He places it onto the counter)CORBETT (muttering): Fork handles. Thought you said 'four candles!' (more clearly) Next?
BARKER: Got any plugs?
CORBETT: Plugs. What kind of plugs?
BARKER: A rubber one, bathroom.
(Ronnie Corbett gets out a box of bath plugs, and places it on the counter)
CORBETT (pulling out two different sized plugs): What size?
BARKER: Thirteen amp!
CORBETT (muttering): It's electric bathroom plugs, we call them, in the trade. Electric bathroom plugs!
(He puts the box away, gets out another box, and places on the counter an electric plug, then puts the box away)
BARKER: Saw tips!
CORBETT: Saw tips? (he doesn't know what he means) What d'you want? Ointment, or something like that?
BARKER: No, saw tips for covering saws.
CORBETT: Oh, haven't got any, haven't got any. (he mutters) Comin' in, but we haven' got any. Next?
BARKER: 'O's!
CORBETT: 'O's?
BARKER: 'O's.
(He goes to get a hoe, and places it on the counter)
BARKER: No, 'O's!
CORBETT: 'O's! I thought you said 'O! (he takes the hose back, and gets a hose, whilst muttering) When you said 'O's, I thought you said 'O! 'O's!
(He places the hose onto the counter)
BARKER: No, 'O's!
CORBETT (confused for a moment): O's? Oh, you mean panty 'o's, panty 'o's! (he picks up a pair of tights from beside him)
BARKER: No, no, 'O's! 'O's for the gate. Mon repose! 'O's! Letter O's!
CORBETT (finally realising): Letter O's! (muttering) You had me going there!
(He climbs up a stepladder, gets a box down, puts the ladder away, and takes the box to the counter, and searches through it for letter O's)
CORBETT: How many d'you want?
BARKER: Two.
(Ronnie Corbett leaves two letter O's on the counter, then takes the box back, gets the ladder out again, puts the box away, climbs down the ladder, and puts the ladder away, then returns to the counter)
CORBETT: Yes, next?
BARKER: Got any P's?
CORBETT (fed up): For Gawd' sake, why didn' you bleedin' tell me that while I was up there then? I'm up and down the shop already, it's up and down the bleedin' shop all the time. (He gets the ladder out, climbs up and gets the box of letters down, then puts the ladder away) Honestly, I've got all this shop, I ain't got any help, it's worth it we plan things. (He puts the box on the counter, and gets out some letter P's) How many d'you want?
BARKER: No! Tins of peas. Three tins of peas!
CORBETT: You're 'avin' me on, ain't ya, yer 'avin' me on?
BARKER: I'm not!
(Ronnie Corbett dumps the box under the counter, and gets three tins of peas)
CORBETT (placing the tins on the counter): Next?
BARKER: Got any pumps?
CORBETT (getting really fed up): 'And pumps, foot pumps? Come on!
BARKER (surprised he has to ask): Foot pumps!
CORBETT (muttering, as he goes down the shop): Foot pumps. See a foot pump? (He sees one, and picks it up) Tidy up in 'ere.
(He puts the pump down on the counter)
BARKER: No, pumps fer ya feet! Brown pump, size nine!
CORBETT (almost at breaking point): You are 'avin' me on, you are definitely 'avin' me on!
BARKER (not taking much notice of Corbett's mood): I'm not!
CORBETT: You are 'avin' me on! (He takes back the pump, and gets a pair of brown foot pumps out of a drawer, and places them on the counter) Next?
BARKER: Washers!
CORBETT (really close to breaking point): What, dishwashers, floor washers, car washers, windscreen washers, back scrubbers, lavatory cleaners? Floor washers?
BARKER: 'Alf inch washers!
CORBETT: Oh, tap washers, tap washers? (He finally breaks, and makes to confiscate his list) Look, I've had just about enough of this, give us that list. (He mutters) I'll get it all myself! (Reading through the list) What's this? What's that? Oh that does it! That just about does it! I have just about had it! (calling through to the back) Mr. Jones! You come out and serve this customer please, I have just about had enough of 'im. (Mr. Jones comes out, and Ronnie Corbett shows him the list) Look what 'e's got on there! Look what 'e's got on there!
JONES (who goes to a drawer with a towel hanging out of it, and opens it): Right! How many would ya like? One or two?
(He removes the towel to reveal the label on the drawer - 'Bill hooks'!)

COMEDY: THE ONE RONNIE SHOW - SONGS OF PRAISE

COMEDY: THE ONE RONNIE SHOW - BLACKBERRY SKETCH

MY  BLACKBERRY IS NOT WORKING.

– I bought something from you last week, and I'm very disappointed.

– Oh yeah? What's the problem?

– Yeah, well, my blackberry is not working.

[laughter, applause]

– What's the matter, it run out of juice?

[laughter]

– No, no, it's completely frozen!

[knocking on table]

– Oh, yeah, I can see that.

I tell you what: let's try it on orange.

[laughter]

– That's got a few black spots, you see...

– Oh, dear, yes. Sorry about that.

– Well, is there anything I can do to get my blackberry working?

– Well, could be an application issue.

Where'd you store that Blackberry?

– Well, it was on my desktop.

– Well, you could try using a mouse to drag the blackberry to the trash.

[laughter]

Then after you've done that, you might wanna launch the blackberry from the desktop.

[laughter]

– Well, I've already tried that a few times. I mean, all it did was mess up windows.

[laughter]

– [clears throat] Well, it might be worth waiting a couple of weeks.

They've got the latest blackberries coming in then.

– Well, could you give me a date?

– Certainly.

[laughter]

– Let me put that date in my diary.

[laughter]

– Anything else I can help you with?

– Yes, yes. I've also got a problem, to be honest, with my apple.

[laughter]

– Oh, dear, oh, dear. That is an old apple, isn't it?

– Yeah.

– When'd you buy that?

– Last week.

– Last week? They've brought out two new apples since then!

[laughter]

What's the problem with it?

– Well, I tried to put my dongle in it... [laughter] and it won't fit.

– Oh, yeah. [laughter]

And how big's your dongle?

– Well, I don't know much about these things, but my wife's seen a few dongles in her time... [laughter]

and she says a little bit on the small side. [laughter]

– Well, I'm afraid there's not a lot I can do about that. Tell you what: let me try booting it. [glass shatters]

Now it's crashed.

[laughter, applause]

Anything else I can help you with?

– Well, funnily enough, yes. My grandson's birthday's soon. 

– Oh, yeah.

– Now, he's already got an apple and a blackberry. I mean, have you got anything else that he might just like?

– Well, we're doing a special offer on these. I mean, I can't make head or tail of them, but the kids seem to like them.

– Oh yeah?

– "Eggs box," £3.60.

[laughter, applause]

COMEDY: FRY AND LAURIE - YOUR NAME, SIR?

COMEDY: FRY AND LAURIE - TRICKY LINGUISTICS

TRICKY LINGUISTICS

Hugh Laurie: : So let's talk instead about flexibility of language - um, linguistic elasticity, if you'd like.

Stephen Fry:: Yes, I think that I've said earlier that our language, English -

L: As spoken by us.

F: As we speak it, yes, certainly, defines us. We are defined by our language, if you will.

L: [to screen] Hello. We're talking about language.

F: Perhaps I can illustrate my point. Let me at least try. Here is a question: um...

L: What is it?

F: Oh! Um... my question is this: is our language - English - capable... is English capable of sustaining demagoguery?

L: Demagoguery?

F: Demagoguery.

L: And by "demagoguery" you mean...

F: By "demagoguery" I mean demagoguery...

L: I thought so.

F: I mean highly-charged oratory, persuasive whipping-up rhetoric. Listen to me, listen to me. If Hitler had been British, would we, under similar circumstances, have been moved, charged up, fired up by his inflammatory speeches, or would we simply have laughed? Is English too ironic to sustain Hitlerian styles? Would his language simply have rung false in our ears?

L: [to screen] We're talking about things ringing false in our ears.

F: May I compartmentalize - I hate to, but may I, may I: is our language a function of our British cynicism, tolerance, resistance to false emotion, humour, and so on, or do those qualities come extrinsically - extrinsically - from the language itself? It's a chicken and egg problem.

L: [to screen] We're talking about chickens, we're talking about eggs.

F: Um... let me start a leveret here: there's language and there's speech. Um, there's chess and there's a game of chess. Mark the difference for me. Mark it please.

L: [to screen] We've moved on to chess.

F: Imagine a piano keyboard, eh, 88 keys, only 88 and yet, and yet, hundreds of new melodies, new tunes, new harmonies are being composed upon hundreds of different keyboards every day in Dorset alone. Our language, tiger, our language: hundreds of thousands of available words, frillions of legitimate new ideas, so that I can say the following sentence and be utterly sure that nobody has ever said it before in the history of human communication: "Hold the newsreader's nose squarely, waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers." Perfectly ordinary words, but never before put in that precise order. A unique child delivered of a unique mother.

L: [to screen] ...

F: And yet, oh, and yet, we, all of us, spend all our days saying to each other the same things time after weary time: "I love you," "Don't go in there," "Get out," "You have no right to say that," "Stop it," "Why should I," "That hurt," "Help," "Marjorie is dead." Hmm? Surely, it's a thought to take out for cream tea on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

L: So, to you, language is more than just a means of communication?

F: Oh, of course it is, of course it is, of course it is, of course it is. Language is my mother, my father, my husband, my brother, my sister, my whore, my mistress, my check-out girl... language is a complimentary moist lemon-scented cleansing square or handy freshen-up wipette. Language is the breath of God. Language is the dew on a fresh apple, it's the soft rain of dust that falls into a shaft of morning light as you pluck from a old bookshelf a half-forgotten book of erotic memoirs. Language is the creak on a stair, it's a spluttering match held to a frosted pane, it's a half-remembered childhood birthday party, it's the warm, wet, trusting touch of a leaking nappy, the hulk of a charred Panzer, the underside of a granite boulder, the first downy growth on the upper lip of a Mediterranean girl. It's cobwebs long since overrun by an old Wellington boot.

L: [to screen] Night-night.

---

Hugh Laurie: Can I just interrupt you here?

Stephen Fry: Certainly, Peter.

Hugh Laurie: Thanks.

Stephen Fry: Pleasure.

COMEDY: JACK DEE AND MODERN YOUTH

COMEDY: AL MURRAY VS. AMERICANS

TRAILER: A NIGHT AT THE OPERA

COMEDY: EDDIE MURPHY: "SLAVES"

COMEDY: Kevin Bridges 'Satellite Dish or Cable?' - Live at the Apollo Series