Diaries 1969–1979 The Python Years

by Palin, Michael

  Friday, August 10th

  It’s now about two and a half weeks since we flew back from Italy and, during that time, although I’ve succeeded in avoiding any major work commitments, we seem to have been busier than ever, renewing friendships that have lapsed since April and enjoying, with a sort of revived energy, living in London.

  Like yesterday, walking through Bloomsbury, south of the Museum, a neat, compact village of Victorian terraced houses with bookshops and magic shops and an atmosphere of small-time human activity, a well-worn, lived-in feeling. The sun had come out and was shining from a clear sky, suffusing the buildings with a golden glow. Of course, I need hardly say that there are plans to knock this down.

  Two weeks ago today, I drove up to Southwold and took the old man to Cambridge for a reunion dinner. I looked after him as carefully as I could, carrying his bag into the college lodge, as if he were a freshman. It was quite a curious reversal of the roles – for his reunion was for all those who had left Cambridge in 1921/22, so around the lodge of Clare’s new buildings had gathered a group comprised entirely of 73-year-old men, all a little rusty and unfamiliar with the proceedings, exactly reliving their first days at the college over fifty years ago.

  I showed the old man to his room, which was in a far corner of the quad. He was in a room opposite his slightly fitter friend Clive Bemrose, who had undertaken to ‘keep an eye on him’, though I had noticed that even Clive Bemrose couldn’t remember to do his flies up after a pee. I felt very out of place, with my long hair and baggy denims.

  In the quad a floppy, fattish, rather shambling man, with a case as tatty as my father’s, and a head as bald, asked us the way to Thirkell Quad. My father double-took in surprise, ‘Well I never, if it isn’t my old best man, Bags Cave.’

  Recognition spread less spontaneously across Bags’ face, but at last it came. ‘Good Lord,’ he said to my father, ‘Hugh St John Gordon! … Palin,’ he corrected himself. My father didn’t seem to notice anything untoward, so pleased was he to encounter Bags. It was Silence and Shallow.

  ‘How are you, old boy?’

  ‘Oh, wilting a little, old boy,’ said Bags, sadly, and started talking about hospitals.

  Being back in Cambridge transformed and inspired my father in such a way that I could visibly see it doing him some good. He was suddenly in control – he knew where he wanted to walk to, and he remembered Cambridge well. I noticed afterwards that the only time he was a little restless was when we walked around the new buildings at St John’s. The joy of Cambridge for him, at his age, is in its lack of change. It doesn’t disorientate him as other cities do, for he can still see many, if not all, of his old haunts. We walked around the colleges, drinking in the privileged atmosphere, on a perfect, calm, sunny evening. I think we both felt great enjoyment during the one and a half hour walk, and it left no question in my mind as to whether it was worth bringing him or not.

  Two days later, on the 29th of July, it was Angela’s 40th and Jeremy’s 13 th birthday and we went down to Dulwich for lunch. The sun came out for us, and we lay in the garden and drank sherry and I tried to take a few photos, as it was one of the very rare occasions on which the family was all together.

  It occurred to me what a polite lot we all are. I can remember Angela’s childhood being punctuated with violent rows and shouting matches, I can remember many occasions when I hated my father for his intolerant, irrational rule-making, and his surliness to my friends, but now, with age, we’ve all mellowed. More optimistically, there doesn’t seem to be any repetition in Angela’s or my family of the lack of contact between father and children which we experienced.

  In the garden after tea, Grandfather1 sat in a deck chair, increasingly concerned with his lack of bowel movements. Granny, getting a little tired, tried to ignore him, and sat talking to Helen. Jeremy, Marcus and Camilla took Thomas and myself on at football. Veryan was cross at the mess we’d made to the lawn. Angela’s chief present was an almost new Citroen 6. The first time she’s had a car of her own. (Later in the week it was rammed up the back at some traffic lights.)

  Next day I took Grandfather down to the West End and dropped him in the Mall, collecting him later from the dark recesses of’his club’, the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. He appeared to be at a low ebb. He didn’t feel like shopping for the coat he had wanted, and said that his wretched condition was definitely slowing him down. With some misgivings I took him to the Barque and Bite, on the Regent’s Canal. It was conveniently un-full, and, as it turned out, we ate a really excellent meal. He had melon and a very generous Dover sole, I succumbed to salmon and asparagus quiche and guinea fowl, he drank beer, I had a half-carafe of house wine. He liked the situation and he relaxed a lot during the meal. We had a good chat and I even told him that Helen and I were possibly going to have another baby – something which I wouldn’t dare tell any other member of the family.1 It didn’t sink in at all, but it felt good to be in confidence-sharing mood with him. He livened up a lot after lunch, and I took him, Thomas and William to Syon Park for the afternoon.

  As I drove out along the M4, I became aware that all three of them were asleep – all nodding gently. After a moment Grandfather woke up and said, à propos of nothing, ‘There’s a plane.’ He kept on about planes and the airport and in the end I asked him directly if he’d rather go to the airport. He jumped at this and, in the heat of mid-afternoon, we found ourselves on top of the Terminal 3 car park, watching the activity. After 20 minutes or so, he said he’d had enough, so we started back. We never did get to Syon.

  The next morning, I took him to catch the 11.30 train back to Suffolk. He looked rather tired and had little bounce left, and it was as well he was going back. But I think the four days had in fact done him a great deal of good, in taking his mind off his ailments, real and imagined, and giving him things to do – the trip to Cambridge, the airport, the Barque and Bite, which showed him that he is not yet an invalid. In fact, his capacity to enjoy himself is very strong, but he needs pushing.

  On Tuesday, Terry and I played squash in the afternoon, and then went on to the BBC for a meeting with Cotton and Duncan Wood about the future of Python. Cotton restated his position that if we were to do a show without John it should not be called Monty Python – it should try and be something different, and it should be tried out in an on-air pilot, with a possible series next year. We in turn had bristled at the idea of having to prove ourselves in a pilot, and so it devolved on John C. How involved is he prepared to be in a new series? If he is adamantly against any involvement when Bill rings him, then we shall have to think about alternatives.

  Tuesday, August 14th

  This evening at 10.05, the first TV play written by Terry and myself went out on BBC2. Secrets had been given a blaze of pre-publicity of the sort normally reserved for the Cup Final. Mainly, I think, because it was the first of a new series, with a prestige star, Warren Mitchell, and a prestige producer, Mark Shivas, and a prestige director, James Cellan Jones. But also because it was at last something new in the midsummer wilderness of repeats. Anyway, we had the Radio Times cover, several trailers, and nearly every critic wrote it up as the main thing to watch this evening.

  Helen and I took the children down to Terry’s and watched there. As the show started I felt a tingling nervous expectancy, and, although it was all recorded long ago, I watched it as if it were live, willing the actors on to say the line faster or slower, hiding my head during a grossly overplayed scene, laughing with tremendous relief when we all laughed. Many things were too cod and too heavily played, but I felt it looked very professional. Graham rang to say he’d enjoyed it and, about 12.00, Barry Cryer was the only other caller. He liked it, but, I think, with reservations. Whatever happens, I don’t think after the enormous publicity build-up the critics will ignore it.

  Wednesday, August 15th

  I opened the Daily Mirror to find the headline on the TV page ‘Choc Drop Flop’. I groaned, but reading on was worse. It was a violen
tly unfavourable criticism, savagely attacking the writers but, ‘as a favour’, not mentioning our names. The Guardian had nothing.

  I bought the other papers, and the situation seemed worse. Both Peter Black in the Mail and Richard Last in the Telegraph felt that it was the writers who were at fault. Last compared us with Evelyn Waugh, unfavourably of course, and Black felt we hadn’t been very clever. Mind you, as a critic, he can hardly have any credence when he caps his review by saying ‘if only Graeme Garden, as the Major in the Monty Python series … could have stopped it’.

  James Thomas in the Express thought it fell flat and it was not until I read The Times that there was any crumb of comfort. At least he thought it was hilarious. For two or so hours, I felt like a hunted man. I didn’t even ring Terry, I didn’t really want to go out.

  About 11.00 Simon A rang. He had seen it with his brother and a friend and they had all found it very funny. His objections were the same as mine – that more realism would have helped, that the overplaying of the slapstick made the tale seem more trivial than it was meant to be – but it hadn’t spoilt it for them. His call cheered me up a lot, and from then on the day began to improve – Terry G had liked it, with reservations, Ann across the road had enjoyed it without reservations.

  In mid-afternoon Mark Shivas rang. He sounded briskly efficient as he expressed his satisfaction with the way the play had been received. People he had come into contact with all seemed to like it. He said that Peter Black and James Thomas had both arrived ten minutes late for the press showing, and that all the good reviews were from people who had not seen it at the press showing – The Times and the Evening News and the Evening Standard (both of whom liked the play a great deal). Shivas was highly pleased, and to reaffirm his confidence in us, he fixed up a lunch date next week, to talk about our writing another play.

  John Junkin1 rang in the evening, just to thank us for making him fall off his chair.

  Wednesday, August 22nd

  To Sound Developments Studios in Gloucester Avenue. John and I are doing commercials for Corona lemonade (they must have been some of the first commercials to be made for Capital Radio, the new London commercial radio station, which doesn’t start broadcasting for another few weeks). Quite a jolly hour – tried different voices – two very modest and unaggressive ad people.

  We drank coffee and stood outside in the sun. John is clearly determined to remain uninvolved in any major Python TV project. He says he is writing with Connie, which is something he always wanted to do, and which gives him the afternoons free! In addition he is doing voice-overs like this one to make quick money. I presume, tho’ he doesn’t talk about it, that he must be working on his films for industry as well. He was keen on doing another record and on being involved in the next Python film.

  When I mentioned rewrites of the film, John hesitated for a moment, then cryptically hinted that he would try and make himself available for this. As the film was written by all of us for all of us, I was a little concerned at his attitude, but it turns out that he is hoping to spend three months in Africa from January to March. This made me inwardly very angry, because he knew the film was around, and he must have realised that there would be more work to do on the script. But that is John all over, he can be incredibly self-centred, and, if he wasn’t so charming with it, I would have told him so.

  Later in the morning I took a bus down to Whitehall and visited the Inigo Jones exhibition at the Banqueting House. The Banqueting House is one of my favourite London buildings – stylish, elegant and civilised, totally unlike the heavy, neo-classical façades of the Home and Foreign Office across the road. I suppose the key is that Inigo Jones was a Sean Kenny1 figure – a theatrical designer who spent more time designing fantasy buildings than real ones, and this is perhaps why the Banqueting House has a lightness of style, with ornamentation that looks as tho’ it’s meant to create exuberance. The Foreign Office and the Home Office were built and designed by Victorian engineers. They are solemn and full of a sense of their own importance.

  Graham rang, still very worried about the future. It’s all a bit of a bore, but I eventually said I would ring Bill Cotton, and find out whether the series was on or off. Bill, who was quite pleasant, couldn’t see why we were all so scornful of a pilot. His diagnosis was that there was pride on both sides, and why didn’t we stop being so stiff-necked? Bill said he would talk to Duncan and ring back tomorrow.

  Thursday, August 23rd

  A shopping trip with Helen. Based in the King’s Road area. A very good lunch at the Casserole. Robert used to take me there when we were doing Hang Down Your Head and Die2 in 1964. It was one of the first London restaurants I went to – one of my first encounters with Sophistication. So it was appropriate that one of the first people I saw on entering was William Donaldson, Esq.,3 blacklisted theatrical agent and the man who paid me my first ever wages after I left Oxford (£50 for working on The Love Show4).

  Willie looked a little hunted, but was as urbane as ever. ‘I was going to say how much I enjoyed your play, Palin’ (which he pronounced Par-lin, as always) ‘but I thought it would be a little unctuous.’

  Helen and I hardly talked, just listened to the table next door where two aggressive ladies from the world of PR were meeting with an Australian publicity man.

  ‘Is he camp?’

  ‘Well … er … yes, yes, but not in the way …’

  ‘He’s incredibly religious.’

  ‘Oh, I would so love to go to India.’

  Just getting off to sleep when Graham rings (11.20) in his vehement shouting mood to tell me that Marty had had a slight nervous breakdown, and other things which don’t interest me at all, especially when I’m standing naked in my office getting my balls cold. But they clearly do mean a lot to Graham, and I am hamstrung by an ever-conciliatory nature. It’s at times like that that I wish I was forceful, opinionated and rude.

  Friday, August 24th

  Took Thomas by bus and train down to Greenwich. We walked around the Cutty Sark for half an hour. Interesting to see the tiny, short bunks which they slept in. The sailors can’t all have been four foot long. Then up the river in leisurely style to Westminster. Journey of nearly three-quarters of an hour, tho’ skirt-flapping hovercrafts do it in about ten minutes. A gentle and unusual way to see London. Sad to see the rows of wharfs. Free Trade Wharf, Metropolitan Wharf etc – all empty now, as so much of the loading and unloading is done at Tilbury and further down river.

  Now it’s all a rather eerie, dead world, until you reach Tower Bridge and the first of the big new developments, which will eventually change the whole emphasis of this part of the river from trade to housing and leisure. Hotels, marinas, all these things are promised.

  Wednesday, August 29th

  To Ingmar Bergman’s Cries and Whispers. A superb piece of film-making – not just technically flawless, but enriched by technique. The acting, as usual with Bergman, was strong, precise and utterly convincing. The placing of the camera, the movement of the camera, the lighting and the extraordinary colours of scarlet, black and white, created the mood and made a not unconventional script and situation into a film of total involvement and great beauty. Both Helen and I were stunned. As we stepped out into the brashness of the Tottenham Court Road, it seemed an unreal, trivial world. Very powerful. If I could make one film like that in my life I would be quite happy to retire.

  Saturday, September 1st

  Bill Oddie offered me one of his season tickets for Chelsea this afternoon. They were playing Sheffield United, and, although they were unlikely to be classy opponents, at least I could see my team in action.

  It was a game which brought bowed heads, groans of despair and mute helplessness to the Chelsea supporters around me. Chelsea, with players of real flair like Hudson and Osgood, after a first 15-minute burst, could do nothing right. Sheffield United, a messy and undynamic side to start with, were made to look like quite classy.

  Bill grumbled throughout, in his rather
endearing way – the only thing he doesn’t seem unhappy about is birdwatching. He’s energetic and involved in his work, rather like Terry, he seems thoughtful and very aware. I always think the Goodies must be growing more sophisticated, but then he tells me that they’re off to Weymouth to shoot a Goodies and the Beanstalk special.

  Monday, September 10th

  In the evening I spent nearly an hour on the phone with J Cleese.

  We talked over everything – but I feel John wants to get completely out of all Python involvement. What a long way we’ve come since John’s phone calls four and a half years ago when he was trying to set up Python. So much has changed in John. V. interesting. We talk about it all the time.

  Tuesday, September 11th

  Thomas’s first day at school. He was dressed by 8.15 and quite clearly full of excitement. At 9.30 he walked off down the road with Helen, holding his envelope with 48p dinner money in it.

  At lunch dropped in at the Monarch in Chalk Farm Road, as today was the last for Nick and Mum, the two who ran the Monarch and made it such a relaxed and friendly pub. A small literary coterie had gathered to pay their last respects. There was Graham, Barry Cryer, Bernard McKenna,1 Tim Brooke-Taylor, an incredibly effusive John Junkin and myself I’ve never been in a group which has taken over a pub as they did today. We sang ‘Irish Eyes Are Smiling’ at full blast, several times. Tim had a nice story. He said to John C at the radio show on Sunday, ‘I hear you’re dithering about Python.’

  ‘Er … not really,’ said John.

  Thursday, September 13th

  The news is of fresh bombings in London yesterday, of the overthrow of the first democratically elected communist government of South America in Chile, of Mr Heath’s rosy optimism in the face of an enormous trade deficit.