We Love Are You Being Served

We may never know the true reason but it seems to me that comedy in the 70’s and 80’s was a lot simpler and to my mind a lot funnier.

For the record I adored both the two Ronnie and Not the... Both of which were and still are hilarious. Anyone who watched the “Swedish chemist” sketch from Not the... will know what I’m talking about.

It could be argued that people are keen to kick up a fuss about things these days. We've seen this with the entire Little Britain thing, the entire three series gets yanked from Netflix and iPlayer and whatever else because of a handful of segments where somebody dresses up in blackface. Let us not forget that an entire series was made around that premise which ran for over 20 years and yes, looking it from a modern point of view it probably shouldn't have happened but that was acceptable entertainment for the time, and that's what people forget.

I wouldn't agree that comedies in the 80s were simpler when you had alternative comedy like Spitting Image, The Young Ones, Comic Strip and the previous mentioned Not the Nine O'Clock News which were willing to push the envelope.

Attitudes do change over time. I don’t remember the 70s so have no idea of the cultural attitudes then. The black and white minstrel show was as far as I know designed to highlight the talents of some terrific singers and was very popular. It even won the golden rose of montreaux.

But the times in which the show existed were time of slowly developing cultural changes and almost like the sea eradicating cliffs the minstrels found themselves opposing the attitudes of the 1970s.

Mel Smith told the story of how Corbett loved the sketch but Barker didn't and felt he was untouchable and thought of himself as "The Guvnor" of TV Centre, but I'd question that version considering I've heard Corbett didn't like it either.

Ben Elton once told a story that he and (i believe) Michael Palin were at a party and were approached by Barker who told Palin that he (Barker) liked Palin but didn't like Elton. Elton was nonplussed considering it an honour that Barker would even talk to him. Corbett as we later know starred with Elton in 1998.

I really liked The Two Ronnies Sketchbook but watching proper episodes of it on Yesterday/Drama/Gold is a bit of an eye opener as to how hit and miss it really was, though the desk headlines were usually always pretty solid.

With regards to Four Candles, on the Sketchbook episode it was featured in, Ronnie B said himself he didn't like the ending.

Barker said on the Sketchbook the ending was later rewritten - "Right then sir, what kind of knockers are you looking for?" - with a slovenly female shop assistant instead of another male assistant. But of course the TV show had been recorded by that point and you're always wise after the event...

There's an episode of C4's "Heroes Of Comedy" on YT about Mike Yarwood. It showed plenty of clips naturally but when I later tried to watch the 1978 Xmas special I had to turn off as the sketches were so slow and dull.

Yarwood is another act who I appreciate was genuinely colossal in his time but it's always felt like something from a completely different era for me. He did have a mini comeback in the early-mid 1990s with a well-received John Major impression at the 1993 Royal Variety Performance, and subsequently made a few appearances including on Have I Got News For You which had worked well for Bob Monkhouse and later would for Bruce Forsyth. He's still alive but rarely appears in public now.

wasn't part of the problem for Mike Yarwood was that so much of his career hung on parodying Harold Wilson?

I'm not sure "slovenly" was what Ronnie B had in mind...