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Drive into Soho to see Herzog’s The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser- a beautiful, careful, memorable little movie. The subject of the ‘noble savage’ suddenly faced with the world seems to lend itself to film – Truffaut’s L’Enfant Sauvage was another excellent and intelligent movie on this theme.

Ate a curry at the Gaylord to try and chase away my cold.

Sunday, August 15th

Terry Gilliam and the script appear to be losing the battle for survival at the expense of Terry Bedford and the technicians, who have, fairly ruthlessly, dictated the pace of the shooting so far. Every day now, as the confidence of the camera and lighting department grows, the shooting schedule falls further and further behind.

Rumour has it that the Rolling Stones are rehearsing here this week – across on Stage A. Will wait to hear more. Last week I got a letter from an hotel on the Cap D’Antibes, written by Ronnie Wood (whom Eric has been gallivanting around with this summer) saying that Eric was too busy to write, but he’d asked Mr Wood to write and tell me that if my letters didn’t become more interesting he’d have to write to one of the Goodies.

Thursday, August 19th

The day drags on – the unions are asked to work until eight. Much muttering and sounding. They seem to agree, but no-one can have asked the electricians, who, at seven, pull the plugs out and that’s it for the day.

Home to see the last hour of Sunset Across the Bay – Frears/Bennett/Tufano teleplay. Wish I’d seen the lot. Terrific playing from Harry Markham.

How I would love to work on something with Alan Bennett – I really admire and enjoy his writing and performing. It’s spare and honest. His world and his characters unglamorous, but delicately drawn and wonderfully believable. He portrays lack of confidence with confident assurance. A craftsman too – he works with care and deliberation on the simplest of lines and his scripts are like softer and gentler Pinter – with the same good ear that Pinter has for human small talk.

Friday, August 20th

Eric rings and comes round for lunch – or with lunch, I should say. Bearded, tanned, in a white cotton boiler suit and a gorgeous perfume. Helen is rather rude about Eric’s smell and says it stinks the kitchen out. Eric is very patient with her! We open a bottle of Jules Laurier sparkling blanc de blancs and eat up kipper pâté, cold beef and salads which Eric has brought from Au Bois St Jean. Spend afternoon chatting outside.

Eric tells me about his summer with the Rolling Stones, or Ronnie Wood, mainly. He likes Ronnie – he’s good company and a laugh – but is more guarded about Jagger (very sharp business mind) and Keith (pleasant, but so doped-up Eric reckons he has only a year to live).

Eric is going over to New York in early October to appear on and co-host Saturday Night Live – the Chevy Chase late-night programme that’s swept the US and which Pythons have, as a group, quite regularly turned down.

As Helen says, Eric ‘doesn’t lack confidence’, but I feel that he’s still lacking something. He is very anxious to get back to Python writing and performing, as if he feels that the fast France/New York world which he’s recently joined and in which friendship tends to be based on how many LPs you’ve had in the charts, does not offer the feet-on-the-ground atmosphere of the Python group.

But, as always, EI is entertaining and amusing and it’s a lovely way to lose an afternoon off!

Saturday, August 21st

In the evening Helen’s cooking again, this time for Terry G and Maggie. They arrive – TG looking unusually gaunt and unshaven, pale-faced and completely without his little bulging stomach. He has some quite impressive news. Apparently Terry Bedford is no longer on the picture.

Yesterday, while I had been pleasantly reminiscing in the sunshine with Eric and sparkling white, Gilliam and Terry B had almost come to blows on the set, after a morning when only two shots had been done. A shouting match had developed and, whilst Max Wall sat patiently in a pool of water (for