Diaries 1969-1979_ The Python Years - Michael Palin [64]
Rosemary rang from the BBC to say they had received a can of real Devon cream addressed to Mr Pither1 from a dairy in Bovey Tracey!
Drove home via the BBC to collect my cream – it contained a note from the owner of the dairy thanking us for the free publicity for Bovey Tracey in the ‘Pither’ show, correcting our pronunciation from Bôvey to Burvey Tracey and ending up ‘I think you are all mad’.
Sunday, December 17th
Woke up feeling very depressed. I faced yet another Sunday spent working on the script – and I’ve had hardly any time at home for about two weeks. The Atticus article on Python in the Sunday Times transformed depression into mute despair. A terrible photo, and a worthless column, written in pseudo-joke style – all I dreaded – and, what’s worse, wrongly attributing nearly all the quotes – and I was unlucky enough to be given Graham’s! Thus, the remarks I felt least necessary when we gave the interview – like ‘Where is John Cleese, anyway?’ and ‘Make sure you say that John Cleese is the middle-aged one’-were faithfully reported as spoken by me! Also my name at the beginning was spelt Pallin.
Drove down to Terry’s to work; he didn’t seem to be particularly worried by the article. Graham rang during the morning. Helen told him I was upset, which I don’t think I’d have bothered to do. He and I rang John – John appeared to think it was quite humorous.
Arrived about 10.00 at the BBC party – which is very much an establishment affair, and Python have always regarded it with some suspicion. However, with the notable exception of John, Eric and Terry G, we decided to go along this year. In fact Terry was even wearing his black tie. General feeling of warmth and well-being about this year’s binge – the food was more imaginative too with ambitious failures like moussaka. Graham C was stalking through the throng, heavily dosed with drink – presumably to cope with the evening – he was wearing a Bill Oddie T-shirt, spelt Bill Addie, and John Tomiczek2 was wearing one spelt Bill Oddle (sic). ‘Who would you like me to insult?’ Graham asked unsteadily. Bill Cotton Jnr occasionally looked anxiously in Graham’s direction, but I think that most people present had learnt what to expect from past experience, and poor old Gra was unable to pick a fight.
Half-way through the evening Bill Cotton made a farewell speech to David Attenborough. He delivered his paean holding his cigarette behind his back, like someone who wasn’t meant to be smoking, but who certainly wasn’t going to waste a good cigarette. Attenborough accepted, to rapturous applause, what looked like a BBC litter bin.
Towards the end of the evening Terry and I plucked up enough courage to approach some of the greats – Milligan, the elder statesman, who has had a remarkably successful year, first his autobiography, Hitler – My Part in his Downfall, then a mini-Goon Show revival – with a special last Goon Show recorded in October for the BBC’s fifty years anniversary – and patronised by royalty. He remained sitting through most of the evening, with no shortage of visitors and well-wishers and sycophants like ourselves coming over to see him. He walked very obviously in front of Bill Cotton, just as Bill was selling David Attenborough, and was heard to shout irreverently during the speech. Eric Morecambe is another one who never dropped his comic persona all evening. If one talked to him, or if one heard him talking to anyone else, he was always doing a routine. He has a very disconcerting habit of suddenly shouting at the top of his voice at someone only a foot away.
Almost exactly true to the pattern of two years ago, one of the last people I spoke to was Eric Sykes, who has a series on Thursday nights1, two hours before us, which gets about the same rating. He’s very much easier to talk to than someone like Milligan or Morecambe, because he’s a gentler character altogether – even when performing. He was very impressed with the ‘Pither Cycling Tour’, and was generally flattering about my performances.
So at 12.00 the band of Light Entertainment