Four Yorkshiremen sketch

The Four Yorkshiremen sketch was originally written for the British television comedy series At Last the 1948 Show, and was co-written by the show's four writers/performers John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Marty Feldman. The four creators performing their original "Four Yorkshiremen sketch" is one of the surviving sketches of the program and can be seen on the At Last the 1948 Show DVD.

Related Topics:
At Last the 1948 Show - John Cleese - Graham Chapman - Tim Brooke-Taylor - Marty Feldman

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The sketch was later adopted as part of the Monty Python canon, and it is now better known as a Monty Python sketch.

Related Topics:
Monty Python

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The sketch involves Four Yorkshiremen at a resort comparing childhood difficulties. Hilarious oneupmanship turns to hyperbole by the end of the sketch.

Related Topics:
Yorkshiremen - Hyperbole

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The sketch involves the four Yorkshiremen sitting in their fine suits, sipping wine and smoking cigars, and begins thusly:

Related Topics:
Wine - Cigars

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First Yorkshirman (Michael Palin) : Ahh.. Very passable, this, very passable.

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Second Yorkshireman (Graham Chapman): Nothing like a good glass of Chateau de Chassilier wine, eh Josiah?

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Third Yorkshireman (Terry Jones): You're right there Obediah.

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Fourth Yorkshireman (Eric Idle): Who'd a thought thirty years ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Chateau de Chassilier wine?

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One of them relates how he only ever had tea to drink as a child, albeit with no sugar or milk. Or tea. Another expresses envy at this, and after he has related his awful childhood, another Yorkshireman steps in with an even more woeful (and obviously ficticious) tale of childhood horror. It all spirals out of control and finishes as follows:-

Related Topics:
Tea - Sugar - Milk

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Third Yorkshireman: Well we had it tough! We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.

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Fourth Yorkshireman: Right...(rolls up sleeves and takes a deep breath) I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing "Hallelujah."

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First Yorkshireman: But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe ya'.

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ALL: Nope, nope..

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