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By Root 829 0

very anti. For some reason I find myself in the rare position of being out on my own (tho’Terry J, I think, feels the same, but is keeping tactfully quiet to avoid accusations of a block vote). Briefly, I see it as six more weeks of a show which I find very dull, and here we are going to the West End, forsaking our Rainbow/pop following – which, John says, ‘scares the shit out of me’ – for the £2.50 circle and front stalls audience, with a show that seems to me full of old material – some of it done in the West End before. What has become of Python the innovator? Are we at the end of our creative careers, at the tender ages of 30-32?

Graham arrives, I think a little fortified, and from the stage show the talk goes on to accounts. Graham is the first to attack fiercely. He says we have asked for the accounts for long enough, and John has done nothing – but John G produces an envelope and, with a triumphant smile, reveals – six copies of the company accounts. A breathing space, everyone feels better, Graham looks discomfited. John G follows this up with optimistic details of payments to come within the month. Such is the success of this move, that he manages to get away with the extraordinary revelation that Tony Stratton-Smith does not have the money for the film. Tony’s offer, we had been constantly assured, was the one cert, in a changing world. Then I notice the beautifully presented accounts are only for the year up to October 1971! They are two years behind.

At last the attack develops. Gilliam rants and raves and expresses his frustration very forcibly, banging the chair. Eric is very quiet. John C wades in, tho’ not ruthlessly. I try to tell John G why we are dissatisfied – that he has for too long been giving us definite optimistic pronouncements which turn out to mean nothing. Graham gets angry again, and John G reacts – cleverly, in retrospect – with injured aggression. He fights back. ‘Then why not get yourself another Python manager?’ he says, sweeping his glasses off with a flourish. You could have heard a pin drop in Waterloo Place this uncommonly mild October afternoon. John G, unconfronted by a barrage of protests, moves quickly on, but into an area where, for the first time, he commits himself too far – ‘Frankly, as far as I am concerned, Python may not be here next year, and I’ve got other eggs in the basket which I have to develop as well …’ Still no reaction. He retracts and returns to safer ground, ‘In any case, I think this is the only area where I may not have produced the goods.’ Here followed the most damning silence of all. We’ll see what develops.

I left the meeting feeling pleased with myself for not giving in over the stage show, but with the unhappy feeling that somehow we must do something for the sake of the group. As Terry G says, there is a danger that we should become too purist, and in rejecting everything because it isn’t quite right, we end up with nothing but principles.

Thursday, October 25th

To the office of Michael White in Duke St, St James’s. A successful and fairly prestigious young impresario – Sleuth, Oh Calcutta! and many other well-known titles on the framed playbills around his office. Pleasant, disarming, unpretentious feel to the offices.

John Goldstone1 was there and Mark [Forstater], and we started to chat after White had offered us a drink. He and Goldstone seemed to share many of our feelings about what the film should be like. White talked of the ‘really good comedy film’ which has yet to be made. What he meant was, I think, that our film should not depend on TV for anything more than a sales impetus, it should be a film of merit in itself. Such intelligent interest in our film we haven’t encountered before. All in all it was an amicable meeting – but then John Cleese in Cambridge Circus was one of White’s prized talents 12 years ago, and Terry has also been in a revue which White backed.

Tuesday, October 30th

Tonight a long phone call from John Cleese. He proposed asking John Goldstone to our Python meeting on Thursday to explain the deal and tell