• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 947 0

lamb, stuffed with salmon, was served with all the style and elegance of an army kitchen. But the company was good and the drink was abundant, and the show – which was the first one of this new series that we recorded – had edited together well, and was especially good because of the diversity of ideas: the false ‘Black Eagle’ pirate opening, the dirty phrase book, the paintings going on strike in the National Gallery. Terry Gilliam’s 2001-style animations, the Ypres sketch with its false starts, the over-acting hospital, were just a few of them. By general consent, one of the best shows we’ve done.

Sunday, December 20th

I got ready for the third successive drinking evening – this time it was the BBC Light Entertainment Group who were the hosts.

The only remarkable thing about an evening which is really only any night in the BBC Club – with slightly better food – was the attitude of the Programme Controllers. An article in The Times on December 16th had detailed, fairly prominently, the continuing saga of Python’s mistreatment by the BBC Programme Planners. Stanley Reynolds was the author, Terry Jones his chief informant, and about 80% of his article was correct and true (which is high by journalistic standards).

David Attenborough, who is, I believe, Assistant Controller of Programmes,1 edged his way over to me quite early in the evening and began some rather nervously jocose banter.‘I feel I ought to come and talk to you – being one of those responsible for the repression of Monty Python.’ But he made the point that the programme had done extremely well as a result of the BBC’s treatment – which is an argument one cannot deny, and any altruistic feelings for the viewer in regions that don’t get Python, must always be tempered with the knowledge that it’s because of them we get assured repeats, and the extra loot which accompanies them.

Paul Fox, on the other hand, seemed genuinely aggrieved – not that he questioned our grounds for complaint, he seemed chiefly appalled that Stanley Reynolds had got the story. ‘That drunken, etc, etc,’ muttered Fox, standing in the middle of the hospitality suite, like a great wounded bear.

Monday, December 21st

In the afternoon collected the new car – a Simca 1100 GLS. A five-door estate in the best functional French tradition. At least, when I picked it up at the garage, it was clean and sparkling and looked absolutely brand new. When I bought the Austin Countryman three and a half years ago, it looked as though it had been standing in the rain for several weeks. So this, at least, was a good start to the justification of my decision to buy French rather than English.

Thursday, December 31st

1970 drew to a close in bitterly cold weather. Apart from some dubbing still to do on the film, Monty Python is finished – we spent almost a year on one thirteen-week series and six weeks making a film – now it remains to be discussed as to whether or when we do another series. In December Terry and I have almost completed a 30-minute TV show for Terry Gilliam to direct but, apart from this, and the possibility of more Python, the future is tantalisingly empty. John, Eric and Graham all seem to have gone back to writing for other people – Marty, Ronnie Barker, in John’s case Doctor at Large – all of which is sad, for we have achieved a big success with our own show and yet only Terry and I seem to be progressing on from Python, rather than helping other shows to emulate it, and we are earning less money for our troubles.

We spent the last hours of 1970 down at Camberwell, where Terry and Alison served up a truly epic meal – antipasta, salmon, pheasant, delicious chocolate mousse, cheese, two kinds of wine and a menu!

So 1970 went out with a well-satisfied belch.

1 Serious BBC2 arts programme, fronted by, among others, Joan Bakewell.

2 Father of Graham, my childhood friend from Sheffield.

3 Spike’s 1969 series Q5 had been an inspiration to us. It had been directed by Ian MacNaughton.

4 Head of Arts Programmes at BBC.

1 Camden Council had a ten-stage plan for the