Diaries 1969-1979_ The Python Years - Michael Palin [112]
Monday, May 27th
Helen and the children come up from London. Helen, who is probably pregnant again, is feeling worse in the evening than the morning. The boys stayed up to watch the rushes and see their dad in a lot of strange guises.
Rather pleased to share with Helen and the kids the silly things I’ve been doing over the last four weeks. It was the Knights of Ni, which people seemed to like quite well.
Tuesday, May 28th
A rather fraught morning. Today we are to shoot Robin and the Singers’ encounter with the Three-Headed Knight. But Graham, who is one of the three heads – the other two being myself and Terry – is not back from London. It’s a complicated piece of learning, which needs all of us to rehearse it properly, and in the last week or so Graham has lost all his early confidence over lines and can hardly remember even one-line speeches.
Graham, Terry and I huddle into the cab of the camera van to learn the words. (One thing we MUST have on future filming is a caravan or, even better, a Dormobile, which is purely for the actors to use. When there is nowhere to sit, nowhere to relax while they spend one and a half hours setting up the shot, one can get very ratty.)
Anyway, we huddle in the camera van, a magazine of film sticking into my back, a battered little jackdaw beside me in its box (John Welland, the camera operator, found it and is trying to nurse it back to health on Ron Hellard’s scrambled egg). I wasn’t enjoying myself at all. Graham couldn’t get it right.
Finally we are strapped into our Three-Headed Knight costume at about 5.00. All my apprehensions about it were unfulfilled. Graham, with just a little prompting, was fluent and funny, and Terry J was the one who seemed to be physically suffering in the uncomfortable costume. We were released about 6.30!
Wednesday, May 29th
John, dressed as a magician, spent much of the morning on the narrow top of an extremely impressive pinnacle of slate, across the quarry from us.
Twice the cameras turned. Twice John, towering above the green and pleasant vistas of the Trossachs, gave the signal to summon forth mighty explosions. Twice the explosions failed, and John was left on this striking, but lonely, pinnacle. He kept in good form, reciting his old cabaret monologues across the quarry, but it was a hard start to the day for him – and he was cold and subdued by the time he came back.
Once again it was a day where visual effects took the major amount of time, leaving John’s quite long passages of dialogue to the later part of the afternoon. John’s performance was good, but he had passed the point when it might have become inspired. But then you never know on film.
Thursday, May 30th
God appeared to us in the morning – with the help of John Horton’s fireworks. Tom came down to the location and was quite impressed to see my now rather shabby Galahad gear – especially the sword. He and Willy played around with the other kids on the mound leading up to the castle.
Finally called to do the opening sequence of the film at the end of the day. Usual difficulty with ‘swirling mist’, as it was a totally unmisty day. But beautiful views all around from the castle battlements – rolling green hills stretching into the distance, tranquillity, peace. I will remember standing up on those cardboard reinforced battlements with John, looking round on a view that can’t have changed much since Doune Castle was built.
Tomorrow is the last day of filming. Already an end of term atmosphere. Eric left at lunchtime with Lyn and Carey [their son] – to spend a night at Edinburgh on the way home. John will not be seen again after we’ve finished on the battlements. The WI hall is no longer looking like an over-stocked jumble sale – the majority