Roy Smiles - Goodnight from Him

A new comedy drama by award-winning playwright Roy Smiles, writer of previous Afternoon Dramas Ying Tong, Good Evening, Pythonesque and Dear Arthur, Love John.

Goodnight From Him tells the story of Ronnie Corbett and Ronnie Barker from their beginnings in cabaret and repertory theatre, via their first meeting at the bar of the Buckstone Club in 1963 and being chosen by David Frost for his new show The Frost Report (alongside John Cleese), to getting their own Saturday night BBC1 series The Two Ronnies in 1971. The show ran for an extraordinary sixteen years, always topping the ratings, ending in 1986 with Ronnie Barker's early retirement.

The play explores the differences between the two: Corbett the happy-go-lucky sketch performer and extrovert, comfortable chatting to an audience; and Barker the shy introvert who needed to hide behind his characters to face an audience and worked like a demon behind the scenes.

Using parodies of some of their greatest sketches - Fork Handles, Mastermind and The Class Sketch from The Frost Report - Goodnight From Him tells the story of how two men worked together for twenty years without ever a cross word.

Written by Roy Smiles.

Producer: Liz Anstee
A CPL production for BBC Radio 4.