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Monday March 1st

A cloudless, blue-sky day. London sparkles, everyone and everything looks better for this dose of reviving spring sunshine. To the Aldwych Theatre for the first of my lessons with Cicely Berry – premier voice-training lady of British Theatre (so everybody says).

She concentrates on transferring my breathing from the top of the rib-cage to the stomach. Once, and she says it will take time, but once I can feel myself breathing out of my stomach, then the tensing of shoulder and back muscles will not affect my voice production, as happens now. Read out Dylan Thomas poem and tried the new breathing techniques. I see her again on Friday.

Call from TG. He says that Sandy Lieberson, producer of Jabberwocky, is now going off the idea of Michael Crawford and is almost persuaded to employ me. Apparently the condition he made today is that J Cleese should be in it as well. TG rang John and offered him a couple of days’ work in August. John apparently accepted without wanting to see the script.

Wednesday, March 3rd

Writing at home during the day. Terry is scribbling down in Camberwell. In the evening a meeting with Michael and Anne Henshaw’re what to do with the Palin millions.

As I sit, like a spectator at a game of tennis, watching Michael and Anne lob and volley tax avoidance chat, very little of which I begin to understand, I feel that same surge of panic in my ignorance as when I was taught maths at school, and as the problem, equation, or whatever was remorselessly expounded, I found myself nodding helplessly along with the rest of the class, knowing full well I didn’t know what was being talked about, but realising that if I asked I would still panic again when it was explained. I sometimes think the Inland Revenue are doing me a favour – it would be the simplest thing to let them do all the sums and take the money and pat me on the head and leave me to the rather modest way of life which is the despair of a true accountant.

Thursday, March 4th

TG rang this evening. Evidently, after some hassles with ‘them’ – i.e. the producers – he has finally persuaded them that I should play Dennis the Peasant in Jabberwocky. So, contracts permitting (and I’d do it for no money anyway), I shall be filming from July 27th to the end of September, and straightaway after that filming two Yarns.

Drove down to Terry J’s for a couple of hours of reading new material. London splendid in the hazy sunshine.

‘Across the Andes by Frog’ and ‘Mystery at Moorstones Manor’ are virtually complete and over the last couple of days I’ve made some headway elaborating on TJ’s very funny start to ‘The Wolf of the Sea’.

A couple of bomb explosions as we’re eating our supper. That makes three today, but no-one hurt in any of them.

Start to read Jabberwocky again – realise that I get peed on twice by page fifty!

Friday, March 3th

To the Aldwych Theatre for another session with Cicely B. Cicely as usual exuding her air of comfortable friendliness. She’s the kind of person you meet once and would tell everything to.

Another very satisfactory hour’s session on the voice. I do think I know and can actually now put into practice the main part of her advice, which is that we should breathe up from our stomachs, which is, after all, the centre of the body, and try and forget chest and shoulders. I try Gumby at full stretch a few times. Cicely cowers away.

Tuesday, March 16th

Harold Wilson is resigning. Quite a bombshell, for there were none of the usual press leaks. But he has just ‘celebrated’ (as they say), his 60th birthday, which is a very statesmanlike thing to do, and Harold, of all recent Western politicians, from Kennedy and Johnson through Brandt and Nixon and Maudling and Thorpe, is still clean – so presumably he’s getting out while the going’s good. Still, he’s been PM for nine years and was becoming as secure a British institution as the Queen or Bovril.

Terry G rings, distraught. The Neal’s Yard property is in jeopardy1 – evidently the owner, who had constantly reassured