Diaries 1969–1979 The Python Years

by Palin, Michael

  Typical of ABC’s extraordinary lack of understanding was that, following this verdict, they approached Terry G and suggested we work out a jokey little disclaimer together!

  Out in Foley Square about 6.15. The cold, sub-zero wind whipping around us as we search for a subway entrance. A dark-coated, pipe-smoking figure, head bent down against the wind, crosses the square towards us. It’s none other than Judge Lasker. He shows we three frozen plaintiffs the subway and walks down there with us. Alas we have no tokens for the barrier. The judge scrabbles around in his pockets, but can only find two to give us. Give me the money, he suggests, and he’ll go through the barrier, buy us some tokens from the kiosk on the other side and hand them through to us.

  We travelled, strap-hanging, with the judge, up to Grand Central Station. The nearest he got to talking about the case was when Terry G voiced his worries that the existence and the modus vivendi of the Standards and Practices Department of ABC was never questioned, and surely should have been. Yes, said Lasker, he too was worried about the Standards and Practices Department.

  He merged into the crowds at Grand Central and we made our way back to the Navarro, packed our bags and, leaving Nancy and Kay-Gee-Bee Music with the bill, stretched out in an enormous limousine which bore us from the rather pretty Christmas atmosphere of New York away out to JFK yet again.

  All usual flights to London until next week being booked, we found ourselves on Air Iran’s flight to Tehran via Heathrow So new was the flight that apparently the booking clerks at JFK didn’t even know it stopped at London.

  Saturday, December 20th

  Woke uncomfortably with the dawn. Feeling dirty, crumpled and dreadfully tired – as only those who fly the Atlantic overnight can feel. The plane started to drip on Terry G … but the hostesses were cheerfully dismissive of his complaints.

  I have to wait for at least an hour at Christmas-crowded Heathrow before ascertaining that my case is definitely on its way to Tehran.

  Monday, December 22nd

  Further news of Python’s ever-increasing international status – some fine reviews for Holy Grail in France. ‘Mieux que Mel Brooks’ – that sort of thing – and the film has apparently opened at a fourth cinema in Paris.

  Wednesday, December 24th, Abbotsley

  The harsh realities of the world away from the cosy log fires of Church Farm impinged deadeningly and depressingly. Terry Gilliam rang to say that, after Judge Lasker had accepted, with minor alterations, our disclaimer for the front of ABC’s Boxing Day Special, ABC had appealed, on Monday afternoon, to three other judges, who had overruled his decision. All that will appear are the words ‘Edited for television by ABC’.1

  So, in terms of actual tangible legal rewards for our week in New York and the $15,000 of Python money spent on the case, we were left with very little. I wait to see evidence of the non-legal rewards, in terms of press coverage, etc, etc, before totally writing off our trip, but today’s news was a pretty nasty Christmas present. But at least my bag arrived, having reached Abbotsley via Tehran.

  Wednesday, December 31st

  Almost the last event of 1975 is also one of the most important – the showing on BBC2 of Three Men in a Boat. We have quite a houseful here by 7.50 when it begins. Catherine Burd is watching with Tom and Willy (who are allowed to stay up) and Jeremy and Alex [neighbours] with their children, both a long way from the sitting still and shutting up age, are here as well. So quite a crowd, and it’s rather difficult to judge the piece – especially as Stephen has opted for a very gently paced, softly played treatment – which seems to be at least ten decibels quieter than any other TV shows. I keep turning the sound up and sitting nearer, but it’s very difficult not to be distracted and I really don’t feel I’ve seen it in the best circumstances when it draws to its languid conclusion at 8.55.

  1 A new, half-glassed-in extension had been built on top of the house. My first custom-built work-room.

  1 Neil was the closest to a manager the Beatles had at the time; Derek was the press officer.

  1 The life-size Dummy Princess Margaret had been created for the Python TV series and, rather than leave her in the props store, we used her to add a bit of class to the Drury Lane stage show, in which she occupied a box throughout the run.

  2 David Mercer, author of Morgan: a Suitable Case for Treatment, The Parachute, Let’s Murder Vivaldi, died in 1980, aged 52.

  1 Assistant director on Charlie Bubbles in 1967, he had directed Albert Finney in the excellent Gumshoe in 1971.

  2 John Gledhill had ceased to be our manager as from November 1974.

  1 I gave up smoking in 1969, but somehow neglected to give up the occasional recreational cigar. Until later in 1975, that is, when my system rebelled against even these.

  1 Ron was the man who broke Monty Python’s Flying Circus on US television. Python’s success began not in New York, but in Dallas.

  1 Lambert died in 1981, aged 46.

  1 André Jacquemin’s new premises in Wardour Street.

  2 Soon to marry John Osborne.

  3 Son of actor Robert, Oxford contemporary of Terry Jones.

  1 Alison Davies, Anne’s assistant, another Python stalwart.

  1 An Oxford contemporary. Like my friend Simon Albury, Jo worked on World in Action.

  2 Rock group manager (Sha-Na-Na) and colleague of Nancy’s at Buddah Records.

  1 Two short plays commissioned by David Leland from Terry and myself for the Sheffield Crucible’s studio.

  1 Popular actor – Doomwatch, Jude the Obscure. Chosen to play Jesus Christ in Zeffirelli’s TV mini-series, Jesus of Nazareth.

  1 Lady Olga Maitland, later a Tory MP.

  1 A Tory MP and deeply religious, pro-censorship, disciplinarian, temperance campaigner.

  1 Harold Wilson’s Labour government asked the question ‘Do you think the UK should stay in the European Community?’ Edward Heath’s Tory government had taken us in on January 1st, 1973.

  1 The Duke of Gloucester was a partner in Hunt Thompson – for whom my brother-in-law worked as an architect. They designed a number of improvements to the house.

  2 Clare Latimer, our neighbour for many years. Now a celebrated caterer and food writer.

  3 Daily Mirror columnist, novelist and playwright – Billy Liar, Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell.

  4 67 per cent said yes. Of the administrative regions, the only rejections were in Shetland and the Western Isles.

  1 An Old Vic, Royal Court actor, just beginning to make his name in television.

  2 Jack Hawkins (1910-73), star of many of the classic movies of my childhood – The Cruel Sea, Bridge on the River Kwai, etc.

  1 Irish-born cabaret star. Brought the art of female impersonation out of the night-clubs and into the mainstream.

  1 Tim created the role of Frank N. Furter in The Rocky Horror Show.

  2 Anne Zelda: actress. Stephen’s girlfriend, now wife. She appears in the Ripping Yarn ‘Murder at Moorstones Manor’.

  1 Keith Moon, drummer of The Who. Harry Nilsson, rock musician, huge fan of Python and excess generally. Died, after a heart-attack, in 1994, aged 53.

  1 He later created Not the Nine O’clock News.

  2 He later became the narrator of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, something I’d inexplicably turned down.

  3 George loved the song so much he offered to produce it as a Christmas single. It reached No. 51, but no higher as the Pythons refused to sing it on Top of the Pops.

  1 Olivia, George’s wife. Kumar was his assistant.

  1 TV editor who worked on The Frost Reports and the Python TV shows.

  2 The most commonly-used machine for editing film in the pre-digital age.

  1 A reference, I think, to the broad comedy style of Jimmy Edwards, who played the headmaster of Chiselbury School in the TV sitcom Whack-O! (1956–60; 1971–2). It was written by Frank Muir and Denis Norden.

  1 ABC, one of the big three American commercial networks, had bought Python’s fourth series (wi
thout John) and reorganised it into two specials. We had been tipped off that the result was not good and that we should take a look at it.

  1 Actor, and writer of many children’s shows, David had appeared in The Oxford Line, a revue I produced and directed for the Edinburgh Festival in 1965.

  2 This was Joseph and his Technicolor Dreamcoat. Lloyd-Webber was a small investor in Holy Grail.

  3 A rare Lloyd-Webber/Tim Rice flop.

  4 The six-day siege ended, peacefully, two days later, when the IRA gunmen gave themselves up. They were charged with ten murders and twenty bombings and jailed for life. They were released in April 1999 as part of the Good Friday Agreement.

  1 We had wanted: ‘The members of Monty Python wish to dissociate themselves from this programme, which is a compilation of their shows edited by ABC without their approval.’

  1976

  Friday, January 2nd

  Up at 9.00 to gather all the papers. The Daily Telegraph calls Three Men ‘as near to television perfection as makes very little matter’. A rave, no less. But, as I had expected, reviews were mixed and there was a very extensive and less friendly review in The Times by Michael Ratcliffe. Large photo above it and ominous heading ‘Playing A Very Straight Bat’. Criticism of the lack of humour was the key note – Frears accused of being unable to ‘find a comic style faithful to both writers’ – Jerome K Jerome and T Stoppard, I presume. A pity that the Times review will be the one my friends will see. The Daily Tel may be a blue-rinse rag politically, but they do have extremely perceptive TV critics! No other reviews.

  A very cordial Python meeting at Park Square East to discuss the content of our stage show in New York. Once again proved that Python works well as a group when discussing the creation of sketches and jokes – the reason, after all, why we originally got together. Python group at its worst discussing business, contracts, hiring and firing personnel, and other areas which we are better at making fun of than taking seriously.

  Today, ‘Blackmail’ was added to the list, John having said that, although he may be sounding rather selfish, he wanted to cut down the number of sketches he appeared in, and he felt that I was very light in number of appearances. So ‘Michael Miles’ out and ‘Blackmail’ in. Graham protested briefly, but the general consensus was that ‘Cocktail Bar’ should go, along with the ‘Bruces’ and the ‘Pepperpots’ in a big purge of the generally accepted weak middle of the first half. In went ‘Salvation Fuzz’ (entirely new to stage), ‘Crunchy Frog’ (ditto) – with Graham taking John’s role as Inspector Praline – and an amalgamation of court sketches to replace ‘Silly Elections’ as a closer.

  Judging by today’s meeting, it really seems that Python has emerged remarkably healthily from the mire of the last two years. There’s a much friendlier, looser, more open feeling amongst the members of the group now. I wonder if it will weather the month’s hard work on the New York stage show, and if it will produce an equally friendly and relaxed working atmosphere for September and October, when we get together to write the third Python film.

  Strong, violent, gusting gales tonight. Up to 105mph in Cambridgeshire and many people killed (twenty-four).

  Saturday, January 3rd

  A busy, socialising weekend. Liz Garden rang on Saturday morning to ask if they could come over and fly Sally’s new kite on Parliament Hill. I warned her about me and kites – that the two should never meet – but, despite warnings, Graeme, Sally, Tom, Willy and I braved a finger-numbing wind on the lower slopes of Parliament Hill. Bill Oddie had given Sally the kite, as he is now apparently a very serious kiter – a ‘Formula One’ kite flyer, as Graeme calls him.

  True to form, I rip part of the thin cellophane fabric before the kite’s even been flown. Several desperate attempts to get it in the air – it twists, wheels, turns like a bucking stallion at a rodeo, before plunging, inevitably, into the ground. After half an hour, when we think we have at last mastered the ballistics problem, Willy treads well-intentionally on one of the struts and the kite is finally written off.

  Off to Le Routier at Camden Lock for lunch.

  Very different from our local Queen’s Crescent Market – the stallholders are your traditional cockneys there – here at Camden Lock the stalls are run by the New Wave of stallholders – young, middle-class, usually feminine, emphasis on the arts and crafts and inter-stall talk about recent Fassbinder movies. Also appalling tat – they will clearly sell anything – as evidenced by several copies of the 1971 AA Book.

  Sunday January 4th

  A couple of reviews in the Sundays. Philip Purser very favourable in the Sunday Telegraph – ‘the languid trio was beautifully cast’ – while Peter Lennon in the Sunday Times gave a brief and rather churlish dismissal of the whole piece, saying that Frears allowed his actors to settle ‘for a relentlessly arch air which quickly grew tedious’ and the Three Men ‘suffered from an inability to sound at ease delivering lines which read agreeably enough in quaint, old-fashioned essay, but needed more drastic transformation by Tom Stoppard to work as dialogue’. So raps on the knuckles all round. Against all my better feelings I was goaded into a short burst of bitter anger by the Sunday Times review. But it passed and rational thought returned.

  Took boys to swim at the Holiday Inn for an hour, then Terry with Alison and Sally arrived bringing their Christmas presents. They gave Tom and Willy a steamroller, a beautiful, solid, working model, complete with whistle which blows a column of steam up your nostrils if you’re not careful. Terry and I then drove out to Acton to play in a charity football match.

  A rather forlorn, rain-soaked notice tied to the railings, which read ‘Big Charity Match: All Stars XI v Happy Wanderers’.

  A very strange afternoon altogether. I scored an own goal (though we won in the end). TJ scored his first goal since he was ten, there was an apparently total absence of any paying spectators, the changing room was minute and the beer was Watney’s Red Barrel. Oh, the glamorous life of an All Star!

  Wednesday, January 7th

  Very warm again. Temps over 50. Sitting up in my room as I have done, with great pleasure, for the last three mornings. The boys went back to school on Monday and I embarked on a vast pile of letters – mostly from America. In two days I wrote about twenty-three replies to fan letters (not the very naughty ones!) plus a four-page New Year missive to Alfred Lord Levinson.

  Today is Tomkinson day. To Terry J’s to watch the show. Also there are Eric, Terry Gilliam, Chuck A,1 Nigel and Dizzy.2 The show looks fine. The reaction within the group of us was very, very good. Terry G … ‘Ah, well … you’ve got no problems with that.’ Chuck chuckled throughout. Eric was highly enthusiastic. Terry Hughes rang to tell me that Ronnie Barker had called him as soon as it finished to say how much he liked it.

  When we got home later my head and stomach were suffering from excitement, relief, tacos and too much cheap Spanish wine. Kitty, our baby-sitter, had a list of calls which she’d rather nicely headed ‘People who enjoyed Tomkinson’s Schooldays’. Graham C rang to say how much better it was than he remembered it. Went to bed feeling rather ill.

  Thursday, January 8th

  Gradually dawns on me during the day that Tomkinson has been something of a success. But for all the right reasons – nearly everyone who has liked it has mentioned its quality. Fresh, different, etc, etc. A meaty and handsome review in The Times by Alan Coren makes my day. Met Denis Norden in a shop, and he grasped my hand and told me he hadn’t laughed so much since before Christmas!

  Finally, as the shadows were lengthening over Gospel Oak, Jimmy Gilbert rang to give the official BBC verdict. He wants me to go in next Monday and talk about more shows.

  I’m as pleased for Terry Hughes as I am for anyone. He worked the BBC system superbly – got us everything we wanted. He was always in sympathy with the script and its intentions and had an instructive and highly accurate sense of where it worked and didn’t work.

  Monday, January 12th

  The continuing backwash of e
nthusiasm for Tomkinson’s Schooldays has helped enormously – our reception by Jimmy at lunch in his office was tinged with more than just his usual cordiality – there was an undeniable air of self-congratulation which resulted in broader smiles, firmer handshakes and a generally more relaxed feeling. Only on a couple of occasions after Python’s success did I ever feel this warm glow of unstinted BBC approval and even then it seemed qualified because of our naughty, enfant terrible reputation.

  Then there’s the question of front money from America. Jim clearly regards himself as something of a transatlantic supersalesman, and is working hard on Time-Life (whom Gilliam and I dragged into court less than a month ago!) to buy a series based on the successful Tomkinson, and therefore put up front money so that the BBC can afford our expensive services.

  Out of all this we won several points. In the end Jimmy agreed that Terry Hughes should direct them all, he also agreed (a momentous point of principle here) that we could, if we needed to, do entire shows on film. I never thought I would live to hear a BBC Head of Comedy make such an heretical suggestion. In return for all this, Terry and I will supply the BBC with thirteen Tomkinson-style shows by mid-summer 1978.

  Thursday, January 15th

  About 1.00 Terry and I drove out to Beaconsfield in Bucks to talk about ourselves to the National Film School (Brian Winston, ex-Oxford and World in Action, having hustled us into it quite successfully).

  It has the run-down air of a half-deserted RAF camp. There are suggestions of over-grown roads and pathways – the buildings are stark, functional and presumably cheap brick and concrete constructions without any refinements. It used to be the Crown Film Unit Studios, where ‘chin-up’ patriotic films were made to boost the nation’s morale in wartime. Ironic, really, because it wouldn’t do the nation’s morale a lot of good to see it now.