Reading this very interesting article about WS Gilbert in Issue 33 of The Critic, I came across a list of ‘great British duos’. The writer argues that in all three examples - fish and chips; Morecambe and Wise; and Peter Cook and Dudley Moore - one half of the duo is 'vastly more important than the other'.
I can see that Peter Cook was the genius in Cook and Moore, and the one with the glasses was funnier than the short one in Morecambe and Wise (although I never quite got the point of either of them, to be truthful - or possibly, in some circles, sacrilegious).
The one pair in the list that I am not sure about is fish and chips - which is the most important element in that combination? Which part of the duo is the dominant one? I suppose it's chips, except that chips exist on their own. So is it actually battered fish? Do some people see the fish bit - or should that be 'the bit of fish'? - as the ascendant part of fish and chips, with chips a mere accompaniment?
Actually I think the problem may be that this duo simply doesn't fit the thesis. I suspect for most people the two components of fish and chips stand together in importance. I wonder whether others agree.
I am also going to spend the rest of the day trying to think of other inseparable duos and working out whether any of them have a dominant and a recessive element. Antony and Cleopatra immediately spring to mind.
