Diaries 1969-1979_ The Python Years - Michael Palin [28]
Thursday, October 22nd
Took a taxi to the Playboy Club in Park Lane, for a party to celebrate starting production on the film.
Inside, the Playboy Club is a taste wilderness. The bunny girls are a real affront to style, desire, everything. They stand around in these ugly costumes which press their breasts out and grasp their buttocks – so that they look like Michelin Men. The bare shoulders are quite pleasant, but the costume’s brutal and unsexy and the bunnies seem to have been drained of character, they are either sickly sweet or rather brusquely military.
The evening was not unpleasant – spoke for a while to Dudley Moore, and even Eric Sykes patted me on the arm and said how much he enjoyed the show. I left at 9.00 and by 12.00 I was back in Southwold, having caught the 9.30 train to Ipswich and driven on from there. To go from the Playboy Club to the east Suffolk coast in four hours is as big a change of environment as you’re likely to get in England.
Monday, October 26th
Today we started filming And Now For Something Completely Different. I got up at 7.00, after having woken at intervals during the night. It was pitch dark outside. It brought back memories of The Complete and Utter History fuming – almost exactly two years ago. But instead of having to drive out to a location in my own car, I was picked up in an enormously comfortable black Humber Imperial and driven, in the company of Graham and Terry, to our location in Holloway. It was a school gymnasium where we were filming the ‘Soft Fruit’ sketch, but when we reached the location I felt a sudden, nervous tightening of the stomach, as I saw a line of caravans parked by the side of the road – and opposite them a large white caterer’s lorry and lighting generator.
Terry and I were sharing a caravan. It was very spacious and comfortable, with a dressing room and a kitchen in it. We all sat around the table before filming began, joking about this new luxury, like schoolboys in a new form room.
We were on the set by 8.30, changed and ready to film. The 35mm camera was another impressive sign that this was a film, as were the many people whose sole job seemed to be to look after us, give us calls when we were required, fetch us coffee if we wanted it, and generally keep us sweet. But our mirth was great when we saw a man struggling to stick an ‘Eric Idle’ sign on the back of a picnic chair. Did we really all have chairs with our name on? Yes we really did and, by the end of an eleven and a half hour-day, with only a half-hour break at lunch, I realised that the caravan, the chairs and the ever-helpful production assistants were there to help us work harder, and they were vital. To have a place to relax in after a take, without having to worry about finding out what is happening next, is a luxury we never had on television filming.
The crew seem, without exception, to be kind, friendly and efficient. Ian seems happy and confident; in short, it is a very enjoyable and impressive first day. We have finished the ‘Soft Fruit’ sketch1 – which is about four minutes of film.
Finally, to sink back into a car and be driven home is a wonderful load off one’s mind.
Saturday, October 31st
We have finished a week’s filming now. In retrospect, Monday was our best day in terms of output, but we filmed at a steady rate throughout the week. On Wednesday we started a week’s location shooting at Black Park – an expanse of pine forest, silver-birch copses, open grassland and beech-covered lakeside, which happens to be just next door to Pinewood Studios. By Friday we had shot the ‘Lumberjack Song’, the ‘How Not to be Seen’ opening and most of the ‘Joke’ film. Morale in the unit is very high.
Tuesday, November 3rd
In the evening Helen and I went down to the Open Space Theatre in Tottenham Court Road, to see The