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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 (without 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.