Diaries 1969-1979_ The Python Years - Michael Palin [282]
Thursday, April 13th
General resurgence of fortunes continues. Anne rings with positive news on John Goldstone’s meetings with Denis O’Brien,1 our latest, and probably last, hope for Brian backing. Apparently O’Brien has okayed the budget, but is negotiating over above the line costs. So Brian is on the way to a resurrection.
Cleese rings, no, sorry, Cleese’s secretary rings to ask me if I would like to go with him to see Alan Bennett’s play The Old Country tonight. I accept (in the absence of my secretary!).
Terry Hughes is going to speak directly to Bryon Parkin, head of BBC Enterprises, over the Ripping Yarns and Lome. Great excitement, atmosphere of things happening. Probably quite illusory.
I fall asleep easily these days – the legacy of New York. I reckon I still have ten hours’ sleep at least to catch up. Managed to stay awake for most of The Old Country, but neither John nor I rated it very highly. Full of surface wit, some elegant lines and well-turned phrases, and many funny moments, but, with the exception of Guinness, it was woodenly played by a cast which seemed to have less energy than the audience. This had the effect of leaving the mellifluous and gently confident Guinness high and dry, giving a Great Performance.
We walked across Shaftesbury Avenue and into Gerrard Street. The warm, bright lights and hanging cooked ducks in the windows brightened us against the unseasonable cold. Ate at a Szechuan restaurant.
We talked about America. When I described to him the day of recording, John grimaced and said he could feel his stomach tightening even as I spoke. I told him he ought to be out doing a decent movie part. He’s always landed with poor roles in movies which doubtless make him money, but end up either getting cut or making no impact at all.
John is defensive – he’s happy at the moment, writing new Fawlty Towers with Connie, though he says each script takes a month’s hard work, but he gets a great deal of satisfaction from them. He makes money from ‘hack work’, as he calls it. Easy-money training films for Video Arts, commercials, films in which he has little involvement.
So John has polarised his life into earning (routine, no great pleasure) and non-earning (creative and artistically satisfying). A dangerous set-up, I would say. I believe the only sane and satisfying way to live is to fuse the two and avoid, wherever possible, cheapening yourself for money. In that way talent gets eradicated.
Tuesday, April 18th
Jill Foster rings to say that the Pascall Bon-Bon commercial may be on next Thursday.
In a weak moment in darkest March, when it looked as though we would be begging on the streets this summer, I came as near to agreeing to consider doing a commercial as I have done for years. My present confusion is the result. But they still haven’t let me see a script.
Wednesday, April 19th
Arrival of the Pascall Bon-Bon script over breakfast. I read it and straightaway felt slightly nauseous. Jill had mentioned a figure exceeding £20,000 for this commercial, or possibly two, and what I had just read was a 30-second piece of trivia – worthless, unoriginal and banal. It looked as though it had been written in four minutes after a drunken lunch. Yet again my mind boggles at the huge discrepancy between money and talent.
I could so easily pick up the phone to Jill and say yes. Yes, I will ignore all my creative and artistic instincts, I will get an injection from the doctor on the morning of the commercial which will render me intellectually numb for the period of a day – at the end of which I will have done the horrendous deed, and be thousands of pounds better off.
Quite a temptation. But I realise that if I did this script I would be committing a crime against all the principles that concern me – honesty, value, integrity – all would be totally compromised. Helen reads the script and agrees. So I have to phone