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Saturday, September 19th

Our running feud with the BBC Planners has come to a head, for not only is the new series going out at a time – 10.00 Tuesday – which is also the regional opt-out slot, so Wales, Scotland, Ireland, the Midlands and the South don’t see M Python, but there is to be a break after three episodes when Python will be replaced by ‘Horse of the Year Show’.

Our only positive reaction in this matter was to write a very gently worded letter to Paul Fox2 expressing our disappointment. Last Wednesday we were visited at rehearsal by Huw Wheldon, managing director of BBC TV. It was obviously a peacemaking mission – an attempt to cheer up the lads on the shop floor – an exercise in labour relations. But in his favour it must be said that he did come, he avoided being patronising or pompous, he had arranged for us to see Paul Fox next week, and he had rung the Radio Times editor to ensure some more publicity.

We were all extremely deferential, but the visit made us all feel a little better – I suppose we were disarmed by the mere fact of such a deity deigning to notice us, let alone enthuse over the programme, and it does make us feel in quite a strong position for next week’s meeting with Paul Fox.

Sunday, 20th September

Terry arrived at 1.00, and together we went up to Graham Chapman’s to prepare our material for a charity show – in which we are doing 30 minutes. It’s in aid of Medical Aid for Vietnam – which J Cleese refers to as ‘Grenades … er … Elastoplast for the Vietcong’. But officially the proceeds from this evening’s show will go to providing medical aid for those civilians involved in the war in Vietnam, who do not receive US aid. I think this is a very humane cause, and I believe that the Vietnam war is an international tragedy, in which one can no longer talk of the right side or the wrong side, or the right solution or the wrong solution, but one can at the very least help all the thousands of civilians who are dying or injured. If I really thought that the money I helped to raise was being spent on killing people, I would not have done the show, but I trust Hanoi – certainly as much as I trust the Americans, if not more.

We ate an excellent roast beef and Yorkshire lunch at Graham’s, rehearsed rather frantically – we are still looking for scripts to learn the words from – and set off in Terry’s car along the gleaming new Westway to the Questors Theatre at Ealing.

The feeling, as we worked through the lighting plot with Ray Jenkins, a TV writer who asked us to take part, was very much like the Etceteras’ Sunday revues, which I produced at Oxford in 1964 and 1965. ‘Light stage left, light stage right’, ‘cross-fade’, ‘blackout’, etc, etc. The adrenaline was flowing healthily as we waited to go on for our first spot at the start of the show.

But the first we knew about the show having started was a hissed urgent voice on the intercom, ‘Monty Python – you are two minutes late on, we are waiting for you.’

One or two people were starting a slow handclap as we reached the wings. We launched into the familiar ‘Tide’,1 then the interview with the Minister whose leg drops off, a monologue called ‘Co-Ed’ and finally ‘Working Class Culture’. By the time we’d finished we had won the audience back, but immediately all the good was undone, as the group who were to follow us – ‘Humblebums’2 – did not know they were supposed to be on, and were obviously going to take some time to set up their amplifiers, speakers, etc. There was no compere to explain to the audience, just an awkward silence. We eventually leapt into the breach, did a few silly walks and whatever quickies we could remember.

The Humblebums were from Glasgow – and played rather gentle, attractive songs, there was an African group beating out some ethnic melodies which came nearest of everything to taking the roof off the place, and top of the bill was the classical guitarist John Williams – who was not only a fantastic guitarist, but a beaut