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1 Shabby, a disgusting man with a pet goat, who appeals to the father of a beautiful upper-class girl (Connie Booth) for her hand in marriage, but spoils his chances by, among other things, gobbing on the carpet.

1 Labour Foreign Secretary in 1966. Resigned in 1968 after differences with the Prime Minister, Harold Wilson. Liked a drink.

2 Later the legendary Captain Mainwaring in Dad’s Army.

1 Edward and Jayne Arnott, neighbours.

1 In fact, he was Director of Programmes.

1971

Friday, January 8th, Glasgow

Caught the 10.05 ‘Royal Scot’ express at Euston. Terry, Alison and I were travelling to Glasgow to see the production of our ‘Aladdin’ pantomime at the Citizens Theatre. It was a dull, rather misty day as we tore through the Midlands towards Crewe.

Eating a meal on a train is one of the great pleasures of life. How else could you have soup with Wigan all around you, steak and kidney pie as the expanse of the Irish Sea approached nearly to the window, and coffee with the fells and crags of the desolate Lake District on either side?

Our rooms had been booked in the Central Hotel, which adjoins the station. It is a railway hotel, built in monumentally impressive proportions in the great age of railway expansion. The walls were about three foot thick, with about fifteen foot width to play with on each step of the mighty staircase. After leaving our bags, we decided to walk in the direction of the Citizens Theatre.

We never did reach the Citizens, but we did find a bar, with very old brown, varnished tables and a wooden floor, and we did meet three shabby men, one of whom told us at great length why he was an alcoholic, and then asked for one of our empty whisky glasses. With elaborate furtiveness the rather sad-eyed, younger man of the three took the glass towards his flies, unbuttoning his coat at the same time. I watched amazed, and then a little relieved, as he produced a surreptitious bottle of what looked like sherry and filled the alcoholic’s glass with it.

We walked back to the hotel, bathed, and took a taxi across the river to the Citizens Theatre where Aladdin by Michael Palin and Terry Jones was the first pantomime the Gorbals had seen for years.

The theatre is a neat size, with a circle and a balcony. We were met at the door, and ushered into the Manager’s office. The Artistic Director, Giles Havergal,1 we learnt, was in Tangier. After seeing the pantomime, we understood why. None of the cast seemed to be able to act too well – they certainly didn’t seem to be enjoying it – and, despite the enthusiastic support of the kids, they hurtled through it. What few gems of wit there are in the script were lost forever, and the creation of atmosphere, which is perhaps something the script does best, was spoilt by the speed and incomprehension of the line delivery. The principal boy had been taken ill and the girl playing her looked marvellous, but acted like a Canadian redwood. The love scene with the princess was one of the most embarrassing things I’ve ever witnessed – combining, as it did, her extraordinary lack of acting ability and the princess’s extraordinary lack of charm.

Afterwards we met Phil McCall, the Widow Twankey of the pantomime. He regarded us cautiously at first, as though he felt rather guilty about the way the pantomime had been done – but when he realised that we didn’t hate every minute of it, he became quite friendly, and we went next door, to the Close Theatre Club – a student-run club with a bar and home-made food. We ate plates of chilli and drank a bottle of scotch, which Phil McCall produced, surreptitiously, from his coat. We parted on very convivial terms, and walked back across the bridge to our hotel.

In one of the huge high-ceilinged rooms, we watched the Marx brothers film Duck Soup on TV.

Sank, happily, into bed at about 1.00.

Around this time Python morphed into a stage show. Tentatively at first, but it was the start of something that was to snowball from the West End to Broadway and eventually to the Hollywood Bowl.

Sunday, January 31st, Coventry