I must admit I had slight pinch-of-salt feelings. At my most cynical I felt here is someone who has his own novel, and another virtually commissioned, about to come out, and his own TV series too [Rutland Weekend Television], to add to an already short and successful radio series, and he is understandably anxious to shed his old Python skin. Eric the loner feels that he has taken all he can from the Python group – he’s moving on, like John did. Oh, he did say in passing that if John came back to do a TV series he would come back too. But meantime, he just wanted to take it easy, write his new book, maybe work on a play.
There was nothing I could say but bully for you. I have long since got over feelings of reproach or bitterness towards Eric. Now I feel just blissfully liberated from a tiresome duty as one of the Python anchormen – now perhaps I can be selfish as well. The prospect is interesting.
Eric and I parted on good terms. There’s no animosity – we’ll see him and Lyn and Carey socially – so perhaps in a year, or even six months, we’ll all be back in the fold again. But if not … now that’s a really exciting prospect … if not … this clear and rapidly cooling February evening, as Eric’s Volkswagen Beetle clatters off down Oak Village – this evening could be the end of lots of things.
Monday, February 24th
To the Henshaws’ for what could be yet another momentous Python meeting.
I’m the first there —Anne H hurries up the stairs with some coffee and says ruefully, ‘This is going to be quite a morning, isn’t it?’ Graham arrives next. He takes the news of Eric’s latest decision stoically to say the least. He smiles as if he knew what was going to happen and betrays no outward and visible signs of distress, anger or anxiety whatsoever – apart from taking a beer at 10.30. The two Terrys are equally resigned (TJ had felt this was an almost inevitable sequel to last Thursday’s meeting anyway).
The news from America daily lends an extra air of unreality to the situation for, by all accounts, Python is catching on in the States as the prestige programme to watch. Nancy rings to say San Francisco has now taken the series, Yale University are doing everything they can to get a print of the first Python film off Columbia, the illustrator of the Marvel and Incredible Hulk comics wants to do a Python comic. Python is set to become the latest cult amongst the AB readership group, whilst back in little old quaint, provincial London, it has finally run its course, and four of its creators are sitting around deciding who is going to do the cleaning-up before the place is finally locked up for the year – or maybe for ever.
The new book is off for the summer, the TV series is off for the autumn. Touring seems the only hope of getting us together again. But, though I am prepared to ring Geoffrey Strachan and Jimmy Gilbert and all the others whom we are constantly messing about, and tell them it’s all off, I do not feel, at this stage, that we can ring Tony S-Smith and change our minds once again over the album of the film. So the four of us agree to put the album together in the next couple of weeks. Eric and John have intimated that they are available to do any voices, but the way I feel at the moment, it’s a matter of pride to do it without them.
We lunch together, the four of us, united at this time like a group who have just lost a close relative, at the Villa Bianca in Hampstead. Graham apologised for being late, but he was buying Plasticine and knitting needles. A moment’s incomprehension, then GC explains that you make the figures out of Plasticine and stick knitting needles in them.
As if not enough had happened today, Mark rings to say that we haven’t got the Casino for our West End opening – we are back to the ABC Bloomsbury, the Scene at the Swiss Centre and the ABC Fulham Road (now four cinemas). TJ is especially furious – he feels that Python will just not work in small cinemas – it will appear to be slow-moving and unfunny – it needs big audiences. Terry speaks on this point with the conviction of an early Christian missionary.
Tuesday, February 25th
At 10.00 Graham and Douglas Adams arrive at Julia Street and, over coffee, we work out select front-of-house photos for all the cinemas (we include one of Tom standing beside a Christmas tree at home) and work out silly captions – then down to Soho to meet Jack Hogarth, head of EMI distribution, to try and put our arguments against an ABC Bloomsbury opening. The receptionist’s soft instructions, the carpeted corridor, the name on the door, the secretary in the outer office, and the huge ten-foot desk which Hogarth gets up from, all work their insidious spell. They are the trappings of authority and responsibility. Abandon hope all idealists who enter here. How can you speak on equal terms to a man with forty square feet of polished wood between him and you?
Terry J took the lead, I tried to back him up, and GC said nothing. Not that there is much you can say when Terry is in the form he was today. He was away with guns blazing, and it was a joy to watch.
Hogarth was treated to a pyrotechnic display of Jonesian extravagance … Did he know we could pack any cinema anywhere? Did he know people had marched in sub-zero temperatures in Toronto to get the series put back on CBC? And so on. We came out with a vague promise by Hogarth to look into it, but for the rest of the day TJ was seething, prowling dangerously like a leopard with a thorn in its bottom.
Thursday, February 27th
The Indian spring continues. As do the phone calls. It took me one and a half hours to make myself a cup of coffee this morning. Every time I got downstairs the phone rang and I had to come up again. Finally drank mid-morning coffee at 1.30!
The film and the film publicity is gathering an almost inexorable impetus. The good news is that EMI have put us into the Casino after all, and the incredible news is that they are simultaneously opening us at the ABC Bloomsbury and ABC Fulham Road. Nat Cohen of EMI now seems to be quite converted to Python and is prepared to give it the full treatment. It shows how fast things are moving – only 48 hours ago we were being told we were lucky to get a cinema like the ABC Bloomsbury at all. Now they are confident in filling 1600 places.
A half-hour call from John Goldstone. He has had a letter back from the censor. The film cannot be given an ‘A’ (over-fives, accompanied), unless we cut down two gory moments, and lose one ‘shit’, the words ‘oral sex’, the entire phrase ‘We make castanets of your testicles’ and some of King Arthur’s repeated ‘Jesus Christs’.
I was prepared to trade the ‘shit’ for the ‘oral sex’, otherwise we’ll settle for an AA (over-fourteens). It’s all too silly.
A call from Jill. She has told Jimmy Gilbert at the BBC of our decision to drop the autumn series after all. But Jill tells me that JG is interested in a Michael Palin show to fill the slots he’d reserved. I couldn’t quite believe it, but, coming a week after Stephen Frears’ Three Men in a Boat offer, it makes me feel excited and confident and quite unsure of the future. Too much is happening.
Friday, February 28th
Up to G Chapman’s for record writing. A gorgeous morning in Highgate. We listen (TG, TJ, Graham, Douglas and myself) to the tapes of the film. And surprisingly involving it is too.
Plenty of ideas come out for presentation, etc, but the work fizzles to a halt at lunchtime when TG has to go off and strip wallpaper in his new house and Graham and Douglas had obviously pre-arranged a meeting in the pub.
TJ and I both sensed another day was falling apart, but the marvellously warm, almost balmy air of Highgate in this unbelievable February, helped to keep us from becoming depressed. Instead we went to the San Carlo restaurant and, over whitebait, liver and a couple of glasses of wine, we discussed some ideas for future writing projects.
I feel that TJ and I have spent over a year as caretaker to Python, and from today on, I say, over my big cigar1 and Calvados, Terry and I are going to do our own thing again.
Or do I really mean my own thing? I must say the Stephen Frears and Jimmy Gilbert offers have boosted my confidence and my determination. But I think we both felt better as a result of lunch. TJ is going up to North Yorkshire today for a weekend break with Al, and Helen and I are going to Abbotsley.<
br />
The last few hours of the week were typical of this whole mad, frenetic week. Phone calls on every subject under the sun, including an enquiry via Jill for me to do a short film next week to publicise Mike Oldfield’s new single, ‘Don Alfonso’. It’s all very urgent, etc, etc. Virgin Records sent me a copy of the disc by taxi and, around six o’clock, one Richard Branson rang. I hadn’t heard the record, but said I was too busy.
When I did hear it I realised I had made the right decision.
Saturday, March 1st, Abbotsley
Helen’s sister Mary, who has exams this coming week, is using my work-room while we’re away, and she rings after lunch, while I am out trundling Rachel round the quiet, muddy roads of Abbotsley village, with my mind on nothing in particular, to say that a BBC Radio 4 reporter has been pestering her to find out details of the ‘Python break-up’.
Mary had given nothing away. She said she knew none of the Pythons’ whereabouts or phone numbers. The reporter, according to Mary, said ‘Oh, surely there’s a phone book of his beside the phone.’
However, G Chapman had been tracked down and, at 5.30, as I cleaned my car in the drive at Church Farm, out of the radio came the Python theme music, which they then ran down. ‘Yes, after five years, Monty Python is no more,’ etc, etc. Graham gave an excellently controlled, sensible, low-key interview, which didn’t deny the story.
Monday, March 3rd
This morning at GC’s, where we are assembled to finish writing the record of the film soundtrack, TJ was very gloomy. He felt that the ‘break-up’ story was not going to do us any good, and it was his fault that it ever got out in the first place. It turns out that the story first appeared in Saturday’s Sun, written by Chris Greenwood under the headline ‘Python Packs It In’, describing an interview ‘with Python spokesman Terry Jones’. Poor Terry knows the guy – a friend of his brother’s – and couldn’t really lie … but he feels very bad about it today.
A depressing morning’s work. Once again Douglas is present, which gives me an irrationally uncomfortable feeling. Is this a Python album or a Python-Adams album? Graham is restless and contributes little … he has a lunchtime meeting and constant phone calls about future plans, which distract terribly.
Tuesday, March 4th
Down to Soho for a meeting at 11.00 with Stephen Murphy, the film censor. Outside the doorway in sunlit Soho Square are gathered as evil-looking a crew as I’ve seen outside of The Godfather. Terry Jones, looking lean and impish, Gilliam in his absurdly enormous leather coat, which makes him look like a looter, Mark Forstater and John Goldstone, dark and efficient.
We marched in this formidable phalanx into S Murphy’s office. It was not unlike a university don’s room, there was a fine mahogany table, books around the walls and a bay window, which added a rather mediaeval feel to the place. From up here Soho Square looked idyllic, like a sunlit university quad.
Murphy has a donnish air, he chain-smokes and has a mischievous face and a slightly unco-ordinated physical presence. But he’s genial and easy and a wonderful change from the executives of EMI. Of course the censor is not a government watchdog, but a man appointed by the industry to protect itself, so there wasn’t a great deal of unseen pressure as there is at the BBC in these sort of discussions. Jolly Mr Murphy claims he has done a great deal for us and, if we want this ‘A’ certificate (in order to make more money!) we must go a little way with him. So could we lose ‘oral sex’, ‘shit’ or any of the ‘Jesus Christs’? ‘ “Oral sex” is a problem,’ he said, very seriously.
Well we came out and, over a coffee in Compton Street, decided that we would agree on changing a couple of Arthur’s angry ‘Jesus Christs’! TJ eventually came up with a replacement. Arthur should say ‘Stephen Murphy’!.
TJ and I drive down to Thames studios at Teddington to talk to Verity Lambert, Head of Plays there. Do we want to write a TV play? Anyway, there is an offer open from Thames, which is nice.
We go and have a pint of Young’s at a nearby tavern. A well-intentioned demonstration march goes by. ‘Evening Classes for Richmond’ is on their banners. Some of the rude labourers from the pub go to the door and shout ‘Eat babies!!’ Much laughter.
As the American bandwagon rolled on, there was an almost insatiable demand for Pythons to help publicise the TV series on PBS and the release of a new record album. The two Terrys, Graham and myself agreed to go over
Friday, March 7th, Marriott Essex House Hotel, New York
We fly from a grey and drizzling London morning at 12.00 on a TWA jumbo. The plane isn’t full, apart from the first class section under the bulbous nose. For us galley slaves back in ‘the coach’ as they coyly call it in the airline publicity, there is plenty of room to wander and stretch out. Terry J has an early burst of windowitis, and thoroughly disturbs himself as he darts from window to window, seat to seat, seeking the perfect view. The journey is inexorably and crushingly boring. Lunch nasty, brutish and short.
Since we were last in New York City, nearly two years ago, there has been the oil crisis and Watergate, the rise of unemployment, the dire situation in the US car industry and President Ford’s drastic economies. But New York is as brash, as bold, as booming as ever.
Once again I was amazed, impressed, excited by the size and grace of these huge soaring steel and glass monsters on either side. Some now are in jet black colours, like huge natural outcrops of granite – not buildings at all. But clustered around the streets at the base of these huge monuments to financial freedom are many small shops and delis, which give New York its life. In a half hour on the street all the cobwebs of that long, dull flight were blown away and I experienced again the sheer delight of walking in New York.
Back to the hotel – drenched. In T Gilliam’s room we launched into our first interview – with a guy called Howard Kissel from Women’s Wear Daily. He looked just like Tiny Tim, he was easy to talk to, had a good sense of humour, and asked intelligent questions.
We walk round the corner to the Russian Tea Room. Clearly a place to be seen. Full of chic, sophisticated New Yorkers, looking over their shoulders all the time to spot the celebrities. Caroline Kennedy, daughter of JFK, was at the table next to ours. Funny that on our first day in NY in ’72 Terry and I passed Ted Kennedy in the street. Maybe they just walk around all the time.
TJ flaked out, but I was so high on New York that, despite being over-full of blinis and red wine, I walked around a bit with Michael Winship of PBS. An interesting guy, he had been a member of the Washington press corps during Watergate. He said the night Nixon resigned there was a numb feeling of total paralysis, then, as the helicopter flew off from the White House lawn, a huge burst of festivities broke out. ‘The King is Dead’, ‘Long live the King’ atmosphere, he says, was incredible.
Well, this extraordinary day ended about 12.00 (4.00 a.m. British time). G Chapman, who always seems to wander into my life at the end of the day, appeared in the hotel corridor. He was shaking his head in disbelief and seemed anxious to tell me a story of his visit to the City Baths.
I sank into a fitful sleep. Make a mental note not to eat or drink ever again.
Sunday, March 9th, New York
We wandered down with our photographer towards the Park Plaza Hotel. He took a few shots of the four of us standing in front of the ponies and traps which do trips round Central Park. After only about 20 seconds of shots, one of the men sourly grunted about us losing him custom (there was no-one for miles anyway) and moved his horse to the other side of the street. Then this generous spirit of animosity was carried on by another horse owner, a young long haired boy, who, somewhat to our amazement, for we had hardly been there for a minute, began to lecture us on the American way of life in general, and paying modelling fees to horse owners on Central Park in particular.
But the final straw, which caused GC and I to laugh all the way to the Plaza Hotel, was when one of the horses took a sudden and very violent lunge at Terry J. The wonderful aggrieved indignation in Terry�
�s voice I’ll remember for ever.
‘He’s bitten a lump out of my coat!’
Sure enough there was a chunk of fur missing from the sleeve of Terry’s brand new big, brown shaggy coat.
Over to Channel 13, which is in a small, cramped, but friendly basement a couple of blocks from the UN and on the edge of the East River. In the studio is a small presentation area, in which sits Gene Shalit, a genial Harpo-Marx sort of character. Behind Gene are some thirty or forty people at desks with telephones. Throughout this evening and the next 11 evenings, the programmes of Channel 13 (which include English imports like Upstairs Downstairs and The Ascent of Man) are interspersed with jolly sales pitches from Gene in which he asks the audience to phone up and pledge money – five, ten dollars, whatever – to keep this non-commercial station going.
Gene Shalit’s children are there (his daughter, who can’t have been more than fifteen, leaned conspiratorially towards me and whispered softly, ‘You know, Python and grass go very well together’), also a few fans (unattractive but keen) and we are all squashed in a small viewing/reception room. Periodically during the five hours we appear with Shalit – at one time answering phones, at another being interviewed.
The general chaotic business of the evening sorts itself out by around 12.00. Two Python shows have gone out on Channel 13 that evening, plus at least half an hour’s screen time of ourselves. We later heard that the viewing figures for tonight were the highest Channel 13 ever had.
At the end of the evening, on air, we make a very committed statement about public subscription television and the freedom which it brings. Python, as far as we are concerned, could never have gone out in the States without public broadcasting – fortunately tonight has proved that we now have enough power to enable us to cock a mild snook at the commercial stranglehold on American TV.
Monday, March 10th, New York
Diaries 1969–1979 The Python Years Page 30
