Is it paranoia, or did I detect a sort of wariness of Palin/Jones material? Our stuff was received well, but both John and Eric unable to accept anything without qualifying their approval – and there also seemed to be a marked resistance to reading all our material.
I think this is partly the fault of late meetings. Two-thirty is not the time when everyone is freshest, and by 4.30 Graham was probably right when he said he felt we were ‘sated’. But I don’t approve at all of stifling Python at source. We always used to give everything anyone wanted to read a hearing, then throw it away.
Thursday, December 9th
Willy’s school concert. Willy plays a tree – one of the leading trees, I hasten to add. Quite a difference from the frightened little snowflake a year ago, who could hardly leave go of his teacher’s hand. This time he sang lustily. I noticed he was quite tall – and towered over Bonnie Oddie, who was next to him.
Sunday, December 12th
Round at Eric’s in Carlton Hill by 2.30 to say hello/goodbye at his party. Oysters and black velvet in the kitchen, plus strangely and brightly attired young folk and reassuringly stocky, functional frame of Derek Birdsall.1 Everyone seems to have seen the clip of me and Terry G on Film ’76, which shows that these casual little interviews are worth doing well.
On one end of the talent-packed sofa is Jagger. He’s smiling in a rather far-off way, but much chattier than when I last met him. He’s 33 as well – like George and Eric. We talk of old record albums. I really never listen to the LPs we’ve made, I say, and I don’t know what’s on them. Mick agrees. He apparently never can stand listening to an album after he’s been through the grind of making it.
Brief chat with EI, who seems concerned that Terry J should not have too much control of the next Python movie. He does blow hot and cold. It was only a few months ago that Eric wanted TJ to direct his TV series! But now he feels that TJ’s problem is that he doesn’t appreciate compromise.
Our chat was inconclusive, but I can see that the direction of the film will be a difficult issue looming up.
Tuesday, December 14th
Last night T Gilliam rang to tell me that my impending appointment at Shepperton is causing quite a stir. TG was talking yesterday with Graham Ford, the general manager, who said that more has got done in the last two weeks than in the last two years. The reason is that the three other directors are quite rattled at the thought of someone who knows the remotest thing about films being appointed to the board. TG says I might save the British Film Industry after all!
To 22 Park Square East for an all-day Python session.
Quite a successful meeting. John reckons we have about 40 per cent good material – good meaning strong. I think I’d put it a little higher, though not much. Today we decide on a public school opening – details of which are improvised at the meeting – and also the rough pattern of Brian’s life – a bastard with a Roman father, toys with joining various Messiahs, is disillusioned, joins, or dabbles, with the resistance, is caught, escapes from the Romans, disguises himself as a prophet and gains a large and devoted following which he also tries to escape from. John and Graham seem to be keen on using my ‘Martyrdom of St Brian’ (the soft and luxurious martyrdom) as an ending … but it’s on endings we’re weakest.
Thursday, December 16th
Almost a year since we went over to defend our reputation in the US Federal Court, we have heard the terms on which ABC are prepared to settle the case, following the successful hearing of our appeal in June. ABC are prepared to pay our legal costs up to $35,000 and are undertaking not to edit any shows without our co-operation and approval. We have established that, should we refuse to edit, the shows cannot go out. From the BBC and Time-Life we have won deadlines within the next five years when the ownership of all the tapes will revert to us.
This was neat justice. The BBC had allowed ABC to make cuts without bothering to consult the Pythons because they didn’t consider the American market anywhere near as important as the UK market. So, after US Federal Court judges had deemed this breach of copyright, the BBC were prepared to give us back the rights to all our tapes, so long as they hung on to those for UK TV
Not only did they still fail to appreciate the growing strength of Python in America, they also failed to predict the burgeoning growth of video and other ancillary rights. Thanks to the BBC’s dumbness, sorry, generosity, we were able to negotiate all these valuable rights for ourselves, and the licence payers missed out on quite a few bob.
Sunday, December 19th
In the evening to TV Centre for the BBC Light Entertainment party. Helen looking very impressive in a flowing, sort of crêpey black dress with a halter neck and embroidered borders which we’d bought together up Hampstead. Me, almost conforming to the intolerable black-tie stuffiness, but in the end the size of my black bow tie – acquired hastily in St John’s Wood for the debate in Oxford – brought such instant laughter from Helen that I was forced to abandon it in favour of an ordinary dark blue tie and black velvet suit.
Everything in full swing when we arrived, but as I hadn’t been there since the 1973 LE party, we went in the wrong entrance and found ourselves in a small ante-room, empty save for Jimmy Savile, crouched over a large plate of food. A cheery exchange and we walk through to find a throng of people we once saw so much. Tim Brooke-Taylor and I commiserate over our eternal branding together in John’s mind as ‘nice’ people. Bill Oddie, small, dark and glowering. ‘I don’t know why I come here,’ he says. Yet he always does.
Tuesday, December 21st
Another very dark day – it’s been like this now for a week. Real Day of Judgement conditions. To Park Square East for a final Python reading meeting.
High standard from John and Graham, Eric average and Terry’s and my first offering frankly bad. A poor rewrite of a poorly written original is never going to stand much chance before this audience – and it bombs embarrassingly.
A second very encouraging piece from John and Graham – about the crowd outside Brian’s home being talked to sharply by Brian’s mother.
My personal gloom finally lifted by the reading of our piece about Brian and Ben in the prison and the Centurion who can’t pronounce his ‘r’s. This five- or six-minute piece, read right at the end of the meeting, with both GC and JC poised to leave, really brings the house down. It could be pre-breaking-up hysteria, but it’s a good note to end this six-week writing stint.
John Goldstone rings to say the censor has seen Jabberwocky and, subject to the removal of one ‘bugger’, given it an ‘A’ certificate.
Wednesday, December 22nd
To the Coronet Viewing Theatre in Wardour Street to see the two Python German TV shows in order that we may finally decide whether to buy them for Python Productions or not.
The first German show, in German, is, apart from ‘Silly Olympics’ and ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ and one or two bits of animation, fairly difficult to follow and looks a little rough, whereas the second looks smooth, polished and expensive. John is anti buying them and Eric very pro.
In the end I side with Eric. The money we use to buy the shows would otherwise be taxed very heavily and I feel that it is a good principle for us to buy the world rights to our work wherever they become available. John keeps saying ‘My mother’s in London’, but he agrees before leaving to the purchase of the shows (cost around £42,000, largely owing to the strength of the Mark and weakness of the pound). Eric agrees to undertake their re-editing.
So Python finally breaks up for Christmas and for me a huge pile of work, stretching unbroken from October ‘75, which I once thought insurmountable, is over. Six weeks of comparative freedom from schedules stretch ahead.
Soho is packed with pre-Christmas shoppers and King Kong posters are going up outside the Casino in preparation for the biggest ever simultaneous world-wide opening, as I walk back to my car.1
Thursday, December 23rd
To Southwold on the 9.30 from Liverpool Street.
Ma and I drive over to Blythburgh Hospital to which Father has recently been moved.
Surprised at the number of people packed into the ward – twenty-two I later discovered – but as he is wheeled by a cheerful Pakistani nurse – a young man with a ready smile and an apparently total resistance to the rather depressing conditions around him – I notice how small he appears, almost shrivelled in his chair. He reacts to seeing me, with a half-smile of pleasure, but after five minutes of talking his eyes wander and he appears to switch off.
Whilst we were having lunch at Croft Cottage, we heard, via various phone calls, that Aunt Katherine2 had died of a heart attack in the night. This was totally unexpected. Aunt K was always the most vigorous and vital life force – loving her work, although she always seemed to have too much – whereas Uncle Hilary, her husband, has been very ill, with an apparently uncurable long-term depression, and has been suicidal over the past month.
Still, we had to tell Father about the death of his only sibling. I wondered how he’d react. For a moment it looked as though he would completely break down. His mouth hung open and seemed about to form a word, but couldn’t. His brow contracted, his eyes took on a stare of what looked like disbelief and began to fill with water. It’s difficult to tell the extent of his feelings behind the mask of Parkinsons. Was it utter desolation for a moment, or what … ?
A few minutes later, unable to get anything more than three or four rushed words out of him, we left. The cheerful Pakistani seemed very ready to talk to us about him and I also briefly met the physiotherapist who says he can only just stand up and cannot walk at all yet. Is this the result of being stuck in hospital for the last three months? Could we have done more to keep him mobile?
All imponderables. On the debit side of Blythburgh are the feeling of crowding, the TV room full of stale smoke because no-one can replace the air extractor, and the constant presence of old men coughing – great chest-ripping, rheumy roars rattling their ribs, a truly awful sound. On the credit side, the enthusiasm and spirit of the staff, which counts for a lot. It’s busy, too – Christmas trees, trolleys with various goodies on are wheeled through the wards by middle-class, middle-aged social workers with tweedy skirts.
On the whole I feel the credits outweigh the debits, but there’s no escaping the wretchedness of his condition.
Saturday, December 25th
The weather’s good – cold enough for fires and other housebound comforts, but bright and sunny too. And silence over Gospel Oak – only the sound of a dog barking – the rush and bustle of London is off the streets and indoors.
After breakfast helped prepare tables and things. Helen had polished all the family silver, which glistened on the white tablecloth in spectacular fashion.
The only really new departure from the traditional family Christmas was taking Tom, Willy and Catherine to the Holiday Inn for a pre-lunch swim. We were about the only people there. Great spirit of Christmas – the attendants threw each other in fully-clothed whilst Tom and Willy and Cath watched open-mouthed.
All went well, despite Mary and Ed forgetting the Christmas pud and Ed uncharacteristically dropping it on the floor when he went back for it.
Everyone went home about eleven. I think I’ve learnt to handle these family Christmases a bit better. I feel tired, but not heavy, fat or blotto with it. Sit and appreciate the tiredness over a film in the excellent BBC ‘Christmas with Cagney’ selection. I find Cagney quite mesmeric.
Thursday, December 30th
Trying to write a Jabberwocky trailer whilst Rachel sits on one knee playing with the telephone – ‘Hello Granny,’ ad nauseam. In the middle of all this, the Health Visitor arrives – an unexpected bonus, as she looks after Rachel for a quarter of an hour, whilst seeing if she can walk and talk properly.
Drive out to Shepperton to meet Graham Ford, general manager of the studios. I had arranged to meet him on my own initiative, just to get a little background on how Shepperton works from the man on the shop floor, as it were, rather than the directors, of whom I am now officially one.
Ford is young (around my age), thinning hair, waistcoat stretched over an incipient paunch, looks like the young manager of a prosperous record store. Smart office – the only part of the Shepperton complex that looks at all dynamic.
Over lunch he elaborates on the rumour I’ve heard that he doesn’t get on with Clive [Hollick]. In fact, he likes Clive personally, but makes the very good point that Clive is a director of several companies, not just Shepperton, and Ford feels that Shepperton is just a name on a list. Though from my talks with Clive I feel he is in sympathy with Ford’s desire to brighten up Shepperton, I quite appreciate that his decisions take a long time to come through.
I come away feeling that, as a director without sixteen other directorships, I could be the one who cares most and most directly about Shepperton. We agree to meet and chat regularly.
1 Charles Alverson, American thriller-writer friend of TG.
2 Terry’s brother and sister-in-law.
1 Our legal adviser at the time. Later manager of Queen.
1 Roy Jenkins. Labour government’s Home Secretary.
1 The name came from a suggestion by Terry’s brother, Nigel, who’d spotted a book on one of Terry’s shelves with a similar style of schoolboy tales.
1 A deadpan lecture about slapstick, with demonstrations, originally written by Terry J, myself and Robert Hewison for an Oxford Revue in 1963.
1 Encouraged by Terry Gilliam and Julian Doyle, I was about to become part-owner of a property at 14/15 Neal’s Yard, in Covent Garden, which we hoped would become a production base for Python and individual work. André Jacquemin’s sound studio, in which I already had a financial interest, would be an important part of the mix.
1 The artist Chris Orr was introduced to me by Robert, who was a big fan of both Chris Orr and John Ruskin.
1 A Poke in the Eye with a Sharp Stick was the title of the Amnesty extravaganza.
1 Signford was an off-the-shelf company and my first, and last, publishing enterprise.
2 Artists who called themselves ‘living sculptures’. They were just beginning to make a wider name for themselves.
1 Ipi Tombi, a South African musical about a boy looking for work in the mines of Johannesburg. It was said to be the first musical performed by nude actors in London.
2 Jonathan Lynn, film director. Creator and co-author of Yes Minister. Cambridge contemporary of Eric Idle, whom he later directed in Nuns on the Run.
1 shared the house with Terry J – and, later, our families.
2 Garson Kanin (1912–99), New York-based actor, writer, director and author of very readable Hollywood novel Moviola.
1 Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig.
1 Yvonne Innes, Neils wife. Their boys, Miles and Luke, and ours had become firm friends.
1 Charles Knode, tall, droll, costume designer friend of Hazel’s. After the flying saucer sequence in Life of Brian he utters the immortal words’You jammy bastard!’
2 Mollie Kirkland, stage manager.
1 Terry’s daughter. She was three at the time, and is still an artist!
1 Despite Piero’s death and the disappearance from Oxford Street of the Academy Cinema, the Pavilion, now run by his friend Vasco and his son, remains our family’s favourite. It has moved to Poland Street.
1 Our one-act plays. Underwood’s Finest Hour is set in a labour room with a mother straining to give birth and a doctor straining to listen to a particularly exciting Test Match. Buchanan’s Finest Hour is about a marketing idea gone awry. The cast, including the Pope, are trapped inside a packing crate throughout.
2 Norman Yardley, Yorkshire and England Captain. Cricketer of the Year 1948.
3 During my ‘gap’ year in 1962, I joined a local amateur dramatic society – the Brightside and Carbrook Co-Operative Players. Won Best Perf. (Gentleman) at Co-Op (N.E. Section) Drama Festival in Leeds in 1962.
1 Ian collaborat
ed on material for Barry Humphries’ stage show.
1 Richard Guedalla, a neighbour.
1 Joint Industry Committee for Television Advertising Research.
2 She got the job.
1 Robin Denselow, Guardian music journalist, BBC documentary maker and reporter. Lived a few doors down from us with his first wife Bambi.
1 A Cambridge contemporary of John and Graham, Jo was in the cast of Cambridge Circus with them and later in At Last the 1948 Show.
1 Clive, later Lord Hollick, and Simon Albury were friends from Nottingham University.
2 About Python in New York.
1 The set had been built in the mid-sixties for the hugely successful musical, Oliver by Lionel Bart. Directed by Carol Reed (The Third Man).
1 Woodward and Bernstein’s book on Nixon. Famous for Deep Throat’s disclosures about the Watergate break-in.
1 TV presenter and journalist. Originally asked to front Film ’73 for a few weeks, he made it his own private domain until Film ’98.
1 Elaine Carew, worked closely with Maggie Weston on make-up for Python and Gilliam films.
1 Focus puller. Worked as lighting cameraman with Terry Gilliam (Brazil, The Fisher King, Twelve Monkeys) and has since shot two of the Harry Potter films.
1 Robin, younger brother of my childhood friend Graham Stuart-Harris. A doctor. Married Barbara, a New Zealander.
1 Fred Zinnemann’s film about Lillian Hellman, starring Vanessa Redgrave.
2 Denholm caused consternation by enquiring, very politely, if it might not be too much trouble to make his call a little later in future. ‘Only I do like a fuck in the morning.’
1 Written by Denis Cannan, it ran eight months at the Ambassadors. Isabel left the cast before the end of the run.
Diaries 1969–1979 The Python Years Page 49
