Diaries 1969-1979_ The Python Years - Michael Palin [163]
On the phone today with TJ the difficult question of Tomkinson and our own working relationship came up. Tony Hendra (of National Lampoon) had offered him a pirate film to direct. Terry was writing back to say he couldn’t do it – whereas in fact he really didn’t want to do it because it would mean a lot of hard work which he didn’t have time for if we were working on the series.
Well, we eventually talked it out over lunch at the Brasserie du Coin in Lamb’s Conduit Street. I suppose it was a little awkward, as it always has been whenever we’ve had to stop and examine our relationship – which has, for ten years, grown, stretched and adjusted itself by fairly effortless natural processes.
Terry said that he didn’t feel particularly frustrated or unfulfilled by the imbalance of writing and performing on Tomkinson and he would be quite happy if that same imbalance were to occur in a future series, but what he wanted to establish was that his own ideas and suggestions were treated with equal importance – if they weren’t, and if I were ‘in control’, then it would not be a relationship he was satisfied with. He thought it quite reasonable if I should want to be ‘in control’, but then it would be a Michael Palin show and not a Jones/Palin show, and, in that case, TJ would be happy to come in and edit and work on scripts after I’d written them and do some performing if needed, but in the meantime would rather get his teeth into another project of his own.
However, I value Terry and his judgement too much to just use it for a half-day every two weeks – and I know that Terry would never be happy if he didn’t have the freedom to contribute and develop ideas from the start. So, though I do want to keep it the Michael Palin show, I do not want to lose Terry and so we agree that it will be an equal talents, equal involvement show.
All happy at the end of the meal – except that I can’t quite see how it can be equal if I am to do the bulk of the performing.
Friday, November 7th
To Robin Powell’s in the morning. Deborah cleaned my teeth out as usual with the frightful pointed, nerve-jarring steel prong, but she talks more about Python, etc, each time I go, and this time we chatted for 25 minutes and gum-gouged for only ten. She tells me Robin Powell is to be made a professor. It’s all very hush-hush at the moment, but he’s the first ever Professor of Periodontal Surgery. Feel quite proud to have been treated by him. Despite his gloom three or four years ago, my teeth are still not falling out.
Monday, November 10th, Southwold
Up to Southwold.
Last week Father had a fall when out walking past Bullard’s Farm – and cut his head in several places. He was taken to Southwold Hospital for stitches and is being kept in there, as Dr Hopkins is worried about the state of his legs – for the fall this time was quite serious, and seemed to have no other cause than his legs giving way.
Southwold was cold and inhospitable today. In the little cottage hospital Daddy was sitting up, but his head looked in a bad way, with three quite severe lacerations and lots of minor cuts and bruises.
He seemed pleased to see me, and laughed self-deprecatingly when I mentioned his fall. But he couldn’t say more than half a dozen words in the entire hour we were there. This appalling difficulty with his speech – which, as he cannot write legibly for more than half a sentence, amounts to an almost total inability to communicate – was the single most obvious indication of the deterioration of his condition since I last saw him. This Parkinson’s does demean people so much. It certainly has rendered him almost helpless – and on today’s standards, I can’t see any likelihood of him returning to the form of his 75th birthday party.
Tuesday, November 11th
A gorgeous morning. A slight frost disappearing as the bright November sun makes the fields steam. Sharp fresh smells of the countryside.
Back to London by a quarter to twelve, time to get back home on the Broad