Diaries 1969-1979_ The Python Years - Michael Palin [21]
The audience was full and, even in our completely straight red-herring opening – the start of a corny pirate film which went on for nearly five minutes – there was a good deal of laughter, just in anticipation. Then John’s ‘Hungarian Phrase Book’ sketch, with exactly the right amount of lunacy and scatology, received a very good reaction.
Out to the Old Oak Common Club for a rehearsal of Show 3.
A most strange atmosphere at the rehearsal. Ian seemed a good deal less happy than last night; everyone seemed rather quiet and unenthusiastic. Perhaps it’s the structure of this particular show, which consists mainly of myself as Cardinal Ximenez and Terry J and Terry G as the two other Cardinals, so the other three members of the cast have comparatively little to do. Perhaps it’s also this very dull, oppressive weather. The near-80s temperature of the last month is still here, and the weather is generally overcast and muggy.
Sunday, June 28th
In the morning I pushed Thomas across the Heath to Kenwood House. He loves being taken through the woods and now points excitedly at the trees, and gives bread to the squirrels, who will come right up to the push-chair.
After lunch I went down to the St Pancras Town Hall to rehearse our short Monty Python contribution to a show called ‘Oh Hampstead’. The title is, to say the least, equivocal – as it is a charity show, directed by John Neville1 in order to raise funds for Ben Whitaker, the Labour MP for Hampstead up till ten days ago.
John and I rehearsed ‘Pet Shop/Parrot’, and Graham and Terry were to do the Minister whose legs fall off. Struck by how very friendly people are when there is the feeling of a cause about. The stage manager and the lady who offered us cups of tea were so matey that it made up for John Neville’s slightly detached theatricality.
As we waited to go and perform, we were all taken with unaccustomed nerves. It was live theatre now – no microphones, no retakes, and it brought us up with a jolt. But the audience knew we were giving our services free for the Labour Party – and they’d paid from £2 10s to £10 to watch, so they must have been pretty strong Labourites. Anyway, it went well.
Decided to take up our invitation to Ben Whitaker’s after the show party. He lives in a sensibly, modestly furnished Victorian house backing on to Primrose Hill.
I think the party may have been rather foisted on him – he seemed to be opening bottles of white wine with the somewhat pained expression of a man who cannot reconcile the joviality around him, or, indeed, the money he’d spent on the wine, with the fact that he had ten days earlier lost his seat in Parliament, his job as a junior minister, and his chance of political advancement for at least ten years. It would be fairly appalling to be told one could do no more shows for four years and yet for a man of any ambition that’s what it must be like. How ungrateful Hampstead has been to Ben Whitaker, I thought, as I shook his limp hand and left his limp party at about 1.00.
Saturday, July 11th
My consumption of food and drink is increasing in direct relation to a) the money I earn and b) the amount of time spent with Graham Chapman, the high priest of hedonism. Terry Gilliam recently gave what seemed a good clue to Graham’s attitudes. Terry suggested that Graham, having once made the big decision – and it must have been greater than the decisions most people are called on to make – to profess himself a homosexual, is no longer concerned with making important decisions. He is now concerned with his homosexual relationships and in perpetuating the atmosphere of well-being which good food and drink bring,