Four Candles

The Four Candles sketch, originally titled The Hardware Shop or Annie Finkhouse is a sketch from the BBC comedy duo The Two Ronnies. Written by Ronnie Barker under the pseudonym of Gerald Wiley, it was first broadcast on Saturday, 18 September 1976 on BBC1. Word play and homophones exhibit Barker's fascination with the English language and are cleverly used to powerful comic effect in this sketch. A shopkeeper, played by Ronnie Corbett, in a hardware shop becomes increasingly frustrated by a customer, played by Barker, because he continuously misunderstands what he is requesting.

A script for the sketch in Ronnie Barker's handwriting was discovered on Antiques Roadshow in 2006 and subsequently authenticated by Ronnie Corbett, who noted that while it was unusual for Barker to write in red ink, it was undoubtedly his handwriting. Corbett surmised that the script may have originally been donated to a charity fund-raiser, as Barker, being uncomfortable with appearing in public 'as himself', would often donate an item to charity events rather than appearing in person. The script was sold at auction for £48,500 in December 2007.

The sketch was inspired by a real incident in a hardware shop (Harrington's) in Broadstairs in Kent, details of which were submitted by the shop owners as possible sketch material.

The sketch opens with a throwaway joke as the hardware shopkeeper (Corbett) hands a lady a roll of toilet paper, saying "mind how you go". The lady exits and the shopkeeper is then confronted by a customer (Barker), who is holding a shopping list. The customer then requests what sounds like "four candles". The shopkeeper then takes out four candles, but the customer merely repeats his request and the shopkeeper is confused. The customer rephrases his request to reveal he in fact wanted "fork 'andles" ("'andles for forks").

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