''The Two Ronnies Sketchbook'' is a collection of sketches from the BBC comedy series ''

The Two Ronnies ''The Two Ronnies'' is a British television comedy sketch show starring Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett. It was created by Bill Cotton and aired on BBC1 from 10 April 1971 to 25 December 1987. The usual format included sketches, solo se ...

'', with newly filmed introductions by the stars,

Ronnie Barker Ronald William George Barker (25 September 1929 – 3 October 2005) was an English actor, comedian and writer. He was known for roles in British comedy television series such as ''Porridge (1974 TV series), Porridge'', ''The Two Ronnies'', ...

and

Ronnie Corbett Ronald Balfour Corbett (4 December 1930 – 31 March 2016) was a Scottish actor, broadcaster, comedian and writer. He had a long association with Ronnie Barker in the BBC television comedy sketch show ''The Two Ronnies''. He achieved promine ...

. It was first broadcast 34 years after the first episode of ''The Two Ronnies'' was aired and 18 years after the final episode aired. The show came about following the BBC's broadcast of '' Ronnie Barker: A Bafta Tribute'' in February 2004, a show which gained a large audience (7.2 million), demonstrating interest remained in Barker's work in comedy. The BAFTA lifetime achievement award was presented to Barker by Ronnie Corbett. The chemistry between the two men was shown to still exist. Six hour-long episodes of ''The Two Ronnies Sketchbook'' aired on

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television b ...

in March and April 2005. It saw the Two Ronnies return behind their news desk, introducing some of their favourite sketches and re-reading some of the comic news items that began and ended every episode of ''The Two Ronnies''. Much was made of the fact that the sketches chosen were shown in their entirety. Each week an episode of the

Spike Milligan Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan (16 April 1918 – 27 February 2002) was an Irish comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright and actor. The son of an English mother and Irish father, he was born in British Raj, British India, where he spent his ...

-scripted serial ''

The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town ''The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town'' was a 1971 episode of LWT's '' Six Dates with Barker'' that was written by Spike Milligan and later adapted by Ronnie Barker for ''The Two Ronnies'' sketch show in 1976. Set in Victorian Lond ...

'' was shown, and each episode featured a new performance by a popular singer. The sketches chosen were considered true classics – the short-sighted optician, 'Your nuts, m'lord', the ''

Mastermind Mastermind, Master Mind or The Mastermind may refer to: Fictional characters * Mastermind (Jason Wyngarde), a fictional supervillain in Marvel Comics, a title also held by his daughters: ** Martinique Jason, the first daughter and successor of the ...

'' spoof (Specialist subject: Answering the Question Before Last), and, the sketch voted the nation's favourite,

Four Candles Four Candles is a sketch from the BBC comedy show ''The Two Ronnies'', written by Ronnie Barker under the pseudonym of Gerald Wiley and first broadcast on 18 September 1976. Comic effect is largely generated through word play and homophones as a ...

(this last sketch was kept until the very end of the sixth episode, pretending they had forgotten about it). The newly recorded introductions provided an opportunity for plenty of good-humoured banter between the pair. The show was met with approval from audiences – 7.9 million tuning in for the opening episode, with many of them too young to have seen ''The Two Ronnies'' when it was first broadcast. Ronnie Corbett later said that Ronnie Barker was "delighted that the ''Two Ronnies Sketchbook'' had gone so well, bringing us to a new generation of audiences". This would end up being Barker's final television work. He appeared frail and had lost a lot of weight, and it later became clear that he had been very unwell with a heart condition whilst filming the show. However, he was determined to record one final Christmas special of ''The Two Ronnies'', and so, on 5 July 2005, ''The Two Ronnies Christmas Sketchbook'' was recorded. It was broadcast on Christmas Day of the same year, two months after Barker's death (Ronnie Corbett paid tribute to him in a specially recorded introduction to the show), and saw the pair introduce their favourite sketches from their Christmas shows. Again, the show was a rousing success, and – with 7.93 million viewers – as the fourth most watched programme on Christmas Day.

Repeat broadcasts

The full series of ''The Two Ronnies Sketchbook'' was repeated on

GOLD Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

daily in Autumn 2007 but was edited to a 30-minute time slot; therefore, the show was broadcast in 12 episodes consecutively instead of six 60-minute shows. Since then, the full series has not been repeated but ''The Two Ronnies Christmas Sketchbook'' has been repeated over the festive period on both

and

. In December 2011,

repeated some episodes of the series again but only in the 30-minute format. On 23 December 2011,

repeated a full sixty-minute episode of ''The Two Ronnies Sketchbook'' for the first time since 2005. On 2, 3 and 4 January 2013,

again repeated three thirty-minute edited episodes of the show; further repeats have been broadcast on GOLD since 1 November 2013. Repeat broadcastings of the 30-minute edited shows aired again in December 2014 on

on Fridays in the 7:30pm slot. GOLD regularly repeats the series and has recently been showing episodes cut down to 45 minutes, to allow adverts. Episode 3 was repeated on

in thirty-minute form on 1 April 2016, after the death of

. During December 2020,

BBC Four BBC Four is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002

repeated the show in the 30-minute format for the Christmas holidays. As of 2025, BBC iPlayer has episodes one and two in the 60-minute versions, complete with guest singers (

Katie Melua Ketevan Katie Melua (; ka, ქეთევან "ქეთი" მელუა, ; born 16 September 1984) is a British singer and songwriter. She was born in Kutaisi, Georgia and raised in Belfast and London. Under the management of composer ...

and

Alison Moyet Geneviève Alison Jane Ballard (; ; born 18 June 1961), formerly known as Alf, is an English singer. Noted for her powerful bluesy contralto voice, she came to prominence as a member of the synth-pop duo Yazoo (band), Yazoo (known as Yaz in Nor ...

) and episodes of "The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town" yet the remaining four episodes are inexplicably of the edited 30-minute versions, losing any guests and the remaining parts of the sketch serial.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Two Ronnies Sketchbook, The 2000s British comedy television series 2005 British television series debuts 2005 British television series endings BBC television sketch shows