Diaries 1969-1979_ The Python Years - Michael Palin [121]
One of Jimmy’s reasons for this fresh bout of anti-sexual censorship is that we are going out at 8.30 on BBCi when the shows are repeated. So, from lunchtime today, we are faced with an important decision. Do we let the BBC change Python into a soft, inoffensive half-hour of pap, or do we fight to keep its teeth, its offensiveness, its naughtiness? Do we have to conform or disappear?
Came home to cauliflower cheese, a couple of glasses of white wine and a sit by the fire whilst I watched Panorama on the World Food Conference in Rome. Within the year one in five of the world’s population will suffer from starvation. It’s like saying they’ll suffer from death.
How small and insignificant it makes the events of today seem – and yet they have left me quite drained.
Tuesday, November 5th
Tom very pleased with himself this morning as he has learnt to tie his shoelaces. He keeps tying and untying them and had to show Mr Jarvis1 how to do it. Helen later tells me they kept on coming undone as he walked to school.
A few fireworks at the Guedallas’, and quick drink, then Robert H came round for the evening.
Robert thinks we ought to stop Python whilst we’re still at the top. I think 31 is a little early to quit – but a few more mornings like yesterday could change my mind.
Wednesday, November 6th
Rehearsals a lot more convivial today, but Graham is feeling very low, as in Monday’s editing Terry and Ian decided that, in view of the censorship cuts demanded by the BBC, the entire Icelandic Honey Week speech from Show 2 would have to be taken out. The loss of three sentences at the BBC’s behest has therefore effectively castrated a funny, absurd, harmless and well-performed little piece.
Anne Henshaw2 came to the rehearsals to give us some money from the book (which seems set for some good sales again this Christmas – the Papperbok is No. 3 in the best-selling lists, below Watership Down and Lyall Watson’s Supernature) and she also showed us a letter from the financial front-man at Charisma, which tried to argue that we were not owed £11,000, but nearer £6,000. This is clearly not true, so the situation there is deteriorating rapidly. Anne is going to keep plugging away at them, but it seems as though Python may find itself in the courts for the first time. What a depressing week it’s turning out to be.
Friday, November 8th
Nancy rang from New York to say she was ecstatic about the critical success of the TV show in New York, and especially over a rave review to be published in the prestigious New York Sunday Times in a couple of days. Boston and Philadelphia have bought the show.
Saturday, November 9th
Our fifth recording. Graham is round here in a mini-cab at 9.30, catching me with the toast and marmalade fresh in my mouth. But we are round at Eric’s by ten to ten, and at the BBC 25 minutes early (a record, I think). Not a great deal of pressure this week as 19 minutes of the show are on film. So it all goes smoothly and unremarkably. For the fireside scene in which the Trapper and Captain Carpenter talk to Teddy Salad, the CIA agent disguised as a dog – John Horton and Richard had excelled themselves – Richard just working the dog with his hand right up its backside was funny enough.
At the end of the dress run-through, Jimmy Gilbert appeared, a little awkward perhaps, but clearly on placatory mission. Great show last week, he said, and apparently the viewing figures – at 5.8 million for Show 1 of the fourth series