• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

My vocal nemesis, ‘Gumby Flower Arranging’ at full blast. City Center, New York, 1976.

‘You’re Pythons. Do something funny fir me! An unpleasant little episode at the Bronx Zoo, New York. (April 20th, 1976)

‘Really quite enjoy flashing a naughty part of the body in a public place – and getting paid rather than arrested for it.’ Jabbenvocky filming at Chepstow Castle. (September 16th, 1976)

‘I like my gear. At least its going to be a deal more comfortable than the armour of Holy Grail’ As Dennis Cooper in Jabberwocky. (July Hth, 1976)

Helen and our friend Ranji, Amsterdam, 1971.

Perks of being a director of Shepperton studios; submarine cannon from the film Hie Land That Time Forgot, is saved from the rubbish tip and ends up in my back garden, 1978.

All in all a very jolly morning – when people started going through their pieces it was like an old folk’s nostalgia evening. Alan Bennett did his ‘Norwich’ telegram piece, Eleanor Bron some witty Michael Frayn material -performed with her stunning, but sometimes quite alarming sense of realism. John Bird arrived, looking windswept and awry, as if just woken from a very long sleep, just in time to rehearse his Idi Amin speech.

By way of a complete contrast Barry Humphries swanned elegantly in, fedora at a rakish angle, smart herringbone suit on and giving off a delicately perfumed fragrance. He was off to a dinner engagement so couldn’t stay long.

Roger Graef and team filmed away, drawn to Jonathan M, as far as one could tell, like moths round a flame. The more I see of them at work, the more dangerous I think it is for them to give the impression in their programmes that they are following and revealing everything important as it happens. Their own selectivity dictates the programme.

Robert H round in the evening. We finalise details about Chris Orr’s Ruskin book, which is to be a Signford1 publication. They’ll print 1,500 copies and I’ll put in £1,500.

Monday, March 29th

Lunch with Terry H at the Arlecchino in Notting Hill Gate to discuss script of’Moorstones’ and ‘Andes by Frog’. Terry J also there.

Terry J talks of what a wonderful unit Python was together, how we functioned best then. I feel I’m functioning best now – with my hard-won independence. It’s not selfishness or conceit, it’s just to do with avoiding the wear and tear on the nervous system.

Shopping in the King’s Road all afternoon, then dropped in to see Nigel [Greenwood] at the gallery. He was in, the gallery was empty. It was six o’clock, so it gave him an excuse to bring out the scotch. We drank and chatted for an hour. I told him about Robert and the Ruskin book. He was interested to know who was publishing, as he himself publishes books. He’s just spent thousands on a Gilbert and George2 book which the printers have heavily fucked up.

He said that, although the gallery has a very experimental attitude and is known for showing the most unconventional and outrageous works, the artists he shows don’t like the gallery world … Nigel a bit resigned, but rather rueful about this.

Wednesday, March 31st

The Amnesty bandwagon gathers momentum today – a second and final rehearsal on stage at Her Majesty’s, with Roger Graef and team poking about. I notice them filming, at great length, a conversation between Cleese and Peter Cook on the stage, and it occurs to me that, as the cameraman himself is small (or average) compared to them, he’s probably much happier filming tall people. I asked Graef whether I would be a better bet for tele-verité if I were six inches taller … ‘Oh, yes, undoubtedly,’ he assured me. They can get lovely angles if you’re tall – shots against the sky, or, in this case, against the spotlights.’ Yesterday they’d been filming the Goodies at rehearsal and the cameraman had found Bill Oddie quite a problem.

Peter Cook – who apologised for his slightly glazed state, saying he was recovering from a long night spent with John Fortune discussing Lenny Bruce’s drug problem – steadfastly refuses to learn the words of the Condemned Man in our ‘Court Sketch