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plebs and being held in position, like a greyhound in a stall, whilst Lenny finishes talking to someone else. Then, after a while, Lenny turns, shakes my hand. He’s smaller than I expected; short and dynamic. The flashbulbs go crazy. Lenny introduces me to Adolph Green, another songwriter, who is nice and quiet and amiable. As I talk to Lenny I’m actually being pulled to one side by this wretched PR lady so that I don’t spoil the shot by obscuring his face from the cameras. He goes on about how he and his kids adore the show. Later he asks John and Eric to do bits of sketches and Eric replies by demanding that Bernstein sing a bit of Beethoven.

Clearly the little fellow loves the publicity and plays up to it – sending it up rotten, but playing along nevertheless, and, always behind and around, the acolytes, the standers and watchers.

It’s the NY treatment, and it goes on till two or three – I forget which – when the waiting limousine whisks us back, exhausted, to 242.

Friday, April 16th, New York

A night to remember. For its sheer awfulness. The children up and about even before dawn, myself trying desperately to catch up on much-needed sleep and poor Helen, up and down calming or quieting the kids, then back to a bed which she found terribly uncomfortable. I had been aware that it was a hard bed, but had put my lack of sleep down to nervous energy rather than discomfort. Now Helen’s misery made me feel just how hard the bed is. I can’t sleep, she can’t sleep, the children can’t sleep.

I ring home, to be congratulated by my mother on our tenth wedding anniversary, which I’d totally forgotten.

Try to buy a mattress for the bed – very difficult on Good Friday. Finally track down a foam rubber store and, with the help of a huge Cadillac limousine, provided by Nancy, I’m able to buy and bring back a 6’ x 6’6” piece of foam rubber before the shop closes at 2.00. Many strange looks as the impressive limousine purrs uptown with a huge ball of foam rubber taking up the entire back seat.

In the afternoon everything improves. The new mattress is a winner (the best $43-worth I’ve ever spent). The evening show receives the best reaction yet – a truly thunderous ovation.

Saturday, April 17th, New York

Two shows tonight: 6.00 and 9.30.

At the theatre Neil tells me that their flat has been burgled. He’s now about the fourth or fifth of the Python group to have lost money or had it stolen since we arrived in NY. Charles K,1 Mollie2 and Carol have all had money taken and, in a strangely un-detailed episode, I gather that John C was rolled by a couple of hookers!

At the first show someone is letting off firecrackers very irritatingly. It comes to a head in ‘Argument’, in which a crack completely obscures a line and Graham leaps in, doing his favourite bit, shouting – or rather, yelling – at hecklers. As he’s just done the Man Who Gives Abuse, it all fits in very neatly. The offender is seen to be removed forcibly from the theatre by Jim Beach. G’s volley of abuse follows him right up the aisle. The sketch goes swimmingly after that.

Sunday, April 18th, New York

Well here we are, about to play two shows at the end of one of our hardest weeks ever, and the temperature hits 96° – the highest April temperature recorded in New York.

Crowds outside stage door now number forty or fifty. Much screaming and autograph signing. Nothing like this in London. It’s quite nice for a while. Am given two beautiful Gumbys – one made in plaster, and another elaborately and painstakingly embroidered – plus flowers, etc. TJ is given a flower for every performance by one fan.

Tuesday, April 20th, New York

An incipient sore throat. It worsened, perversely, on the day off, probably as a result of heat and dust and tiredness. Today’s schedule gives it no chance.

At 10.10 we all leave the house to go to a Warner Books ‘Literary Reception’ at the Bronx Zoo. A good chance to mix business and pleasure. Due to a mix-up with the limousines, we do not arrive at our destination for an hour and 20 minutes. It’s free day at the zoo and the place