Diaries 1969-1979_ The Python Years - Michael Palin [34]
2 Marty Feldman, one of the At Last the 1948 Show team, and co-writer, with Barry Took, of much radio comedy. He was now a star in his own right.
3 Tony Hancock’s brother, ran an agency which represented, among others, Eric Idle and Bill Oddie.
1 Jill Foster, our agent. She worked for Kenneth Ewing at Fraser & Dunlop.
1 In partnership with Frank Muir he had written some of the best radio comedy including Take It From Here, one of the few programmes to bring my mother, father and myself together round the wireless.
1 Abbotsley, near St Neots in Cambridgeshire, home of Helen’s mother, Anne Gibbins. Helen’s father, a farmer, died in 1963 at the age of 53, from heart complications that would now be dealt with by routine surgery.
2 Helen’s niece, then four years old.
1 David Jason had been one of the cast of Do Not Adjust Your Set, produced by Humphrey Barclay, yet another of the Cambridge comedy mafia, who also produced The Complete and Utter History of Britain for Terry and myself in 1968–9.
2 1969 film, directed by John Sturges, starring Gregory Peck and Gene Hackman.
1 Michael Mills, Head of Comedy at the BBC, was the man who green-lighted Python in the summer of 1969. Despite a disastrous meeting at which we could give no satisfactory answers to any of his questions, he came out with the memorable words, ‘All right, I’ll give you thirteen shows, but that’s all!’
1 Screenplay about a penis transplant, eventually filmed, starring Denholm Elliott, Hywel Bennett, Britt Ekland and others. Betty Box, producer, and Ralph Thomas, director, were responsible for a string of Pinewood Studios hits, including Doctor in the House.
1 Lyn Ashley, Eric Idles wife.
2 Eric and John decided to stay. In John’s case a lucrative decision as he later based Fawlty Towers on Gleneagles.
1 Carol Cleveland, who understood the Python style so well she became almost the seventh member of the team.
2 Connie Booth, actress and co-writer of Fawlty Towers, married to John Cleese.
1 ‘Book of the Month Club Dung’, which found its way into Show 6 of the second series.
1 Classically-trained Shakespearean actor and director.
1 Helen’s younger sister.
1 The It’s Man was a cross I’d made for myself, by suggesting that at the start of each show a haggard, wild-eyed old man should stagger out of incredibly uncomfortable situations, lurch to camera and with his last breath squeeze out the word ‘It’s’. I was unanimously chosen to play the part, one of the most consistently uncomfortable in Python.
2 Controller, BBCi.
1 A sketch from the Oxford days, which involved an enthusiastic foreign salesman extolling the virtues of Tide, apparently unaware that it’s a washing powder. He eventually pours some into a bowl, produces a spoon and, with a big smile, eats it. Horrible to perform as, for some reason, I never got round to substituting the washing powder for something edible.
2 A Scottish folk-singing duo, one of whom was Gerry Rafferty and the other, Billy Connolly.
1 Jeremy, Marcus and Camilla, the children of my sister Angela and her husband, Veryan Herbert.
1 A quintessentially British humorous and satirical magazine which first came out in 1841 and ran for 150 years. With readership declining from a peak of 175,000 to some 8,000, it was finally closed in 2002.
1 In which John plays a crazed RSM teaching a bunch of squaddies how to defend themselves against bananas and various other forms of soft fruit.
2 A group, formed in 1963 in Liverpool, performing sketches, poems and songs and comprising John Gorman, Roger McGough and Mike McCartney, Paul’s brother, who appeared under the pseudonym Mike McGear.
1 All three were friends from Oxford. Paul and Simon were both barristers and Jenny, née Lewis, a singer and