Monty Python's Flying Circus: The Sketches
Page 67
Climbing the north face of the Uxbridge road
As featured in the Flying Circus TV Show - Episode 33
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The cast:
VOICE OVER
Michael Palin
CHRIS
Eric Idle
INTERVIEWER
John Cleese
BERT
Graham Chapman
VIKING
Micahel Palin
* * *
The sketch:
(Cut to mountain climbers, with all the accoutrements: ropes, carabina's helmets, pitons, hammers, etc. They are roped together, apparently climbing a mountain.)
Voice Over: Climbing. The world's loneliest sport, where hardship and philosophy go hand in glove. And here, another British expedition, attempting to be the first man to successfully climb the north face of the Uxbridge Road. (Pull out to reveal that they are climbing along a wide pavement; a shopper pushing a pram comes into shot) This four-man rope has been climbing tremendously. BBC cameras were there to film every inch.
(Cut to a BBC cameraman clinging to a lamppost, filming. He is wearing climbing gear too. Cut to papier mache model of the Uxbridge Road, with the route all neatly marked out in white, and various little pins for the camps.)
Chris: (voice over) The major assault on the Uxbridge Road has been going on for about three weeks, really ever since they established base camp here at the junction of Willesden Road, and from there they climbed steadily to establish camp two, outside Lewis's, and it's taken them another three days to establish camp three, here outside the post office. (cut to a pup tent being firmly planted on the side of a large postbox; it has a little union jack on it.) Well they've spent a good night in there last night in preparation for the final assault today. The leader of the expedition is twenty-nine-year-old Bert Tagg - a local headmaster and mother of three:
(Cut to Bert crawling along the pavement. The interviewer is crouching down beside him.)
Interviewer: Bert. How's it going?
Bert: Well, it's a bit gripping is this, Chris. (heavy breathing interspersed)) I've got to try and reach that bus stop in an hour or so and I'm doing it by... (rearranging rope) damn ... I'm doing it, er, by laying back on this gutter so I'm kind of guttering and laying back at the same time, and philosophizing.
Interviewer: Bert, some people say this is crazy.
Bert: Aye, well but they said Crippen was crazy didn't they?
Interviewer: Crippen was crazy.
Bert: Oh, well there you are then. (shouts) John, l'm sending you down this carabina on white, (there is a white rope between Bert and John)
(Quick cut to Viking.)
Viking: Lemon curry?
(Cut back to the street.)
Bert: Now you see he's putting a peg down there because I'm quite a way up now, and if I come unstuck here I go down quite a long way.
Interviewer: (leaving him) Such quiet courage is typical of the way these brave chaps shrug off danger. Like it or not, you've got to admire the skill that goes into it.
(By the miracle of stop action, they all fall off the road, back down the pavement. Passers-by, also in stop action, walk by normally, ignoring the fall.)
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Lifeboat
As featured in the Flying Circus TV Show - Episode 33
* * *
The cast:
FIRST LIFEBOATMAN
Michael Palin
MRS. NEVES
Terry Jones
SECOND LIFEBOATMAN
Graham Chapman
THIRD LIFEBOATMAN
Terry Gilliam
* * *
The sketch:
(Cut to an ordinary kitchen. A Mrs Pinnet type lady with long apron and headscarf is stuffing a chicken with various unlikely objects. The door opens. Sound of rain, wind and storm outside. A liftboatman enters, soaked to the skin. He shuts the door.)
First Lifeboatman: (taking off his sou 'wester and shaking the water off it) Oh it's terrible up on deck.
Mrs Neves: Up on deck?
First Lifeboatman: Yes on deck. It's diabolical weather.
Mrs Neves: What deck, dear?
First Lifeboatman: The deck, The deck of the lifeboat.
Mrs Neves: This isn't a lifeboat, dear. This is 24, Parker Street.
First Lifeboatman: This is the Newhaven Lifeboat.
Mrs Neves: No it's not, dear.
(The First Lifeboatman puts on his sou 'wester, goes over to the back door and opens it, He peers out. Sound of wind and lashing rain. Cut to the back door at the side of a suburban home, the lifeboatman looking out over the lawns, flowers and windless, rainless calm across to similar neat suburban houses. 'The noise cuts. The liftboatman withdraws his head from the door. Sound of wind and rain again which cease abruptly as he withdraws his head and shuts the door.)
First Lifeboatman: You're right. This isn't a lifeboat at all.
Mrs Neves: No, I wouldn't live here if it was,
First Lifeboatman: Do you mind if I sit down for a minute and collect my wits?
Mrs Neves: No, you do that, I'll make you a nice cup of tea.
First Lifeboatman: Thanks very much.
(The door flies open. More sound of wind and rain. Two other rain-soaked lifeboatmen appear.)
Second Lifeboatman: Oooh, it's a wild night up top.
Third Lifeboatman: Your turn on deck soon, Charlie.
First Lifeboatman: It's not a lifeboat, Frank.
Third Lifeboatrman: What?
Second Lifeboatman: What do you mean?
First Lifeboatman: It's not a lifeboat. It's this lady's house.
(The two lifeboatmen look at each other, then turn and open the door. Sound of wind and rain as usual. They peer out. Cut to the back door - the two lifeboatmen are peering out. They shout.)
Second and Third Lifeboatmen: Captain! Captain! Ahoy there! Ahoy there! Captain!!
(Their voices carry over the following shot or two. Cut to reverse angle of window across the road. A net curtain moves and an eye peers out... continues)
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Old Lady Snoopers
As featured in the Flying Circus TV Show - Episode 33
* * *
The cast:
ENID
Eric Idle
GLADYS
John Cleese
FIRST LIFEBOATMAN
Michael Palin
SECOND LIFEBOATMAN
Graham Chapman
MRS. NEVES
Terry Jones
MRS. EDWARDS
Graham Chapman
DORIS
John Cleese
OFFICER
Michael Palin
* * *
The sketch:
(Sketch continues from the Lifeboat Sketch. We still hear the shouts. Close up on an elderly spinster (Gladys) holding the net curtain discreetly ajar.)
Enid: Who's that shouting?
(We pull out to reveal a sitting room full of high-powered eavesdropping equipment, i.e. an enormous telescope on wheels with a controller's chair attached to it, several subsidiary telescopes pointing out of the window, radar scanners going round and round, two computers with flashing lights, large and complex tape and video recorders, several TV monitors, oscilloscopes, aerials, etc. All these have been squeezed in amongst the furniture of two retired middle-class old ladies. Enid, a dear old lady with a bun, sits at the control seat of an impressive-looking console, pressing buttons. She also has some knitting.)
Gladys: (JOHN) It's a man outside Number 24.
Enid: Try it on the five inch, Gladys.
Gladys: (looking at the array of telescopes) I can't. I've got that fixed on the Baileys at Number 13. Their new lodger moves in today.
Enid: All fight, hold 13 on the five-inch and transfer the Cartwrights to the digital scanner.
(Gladys leaps over to the tape deck, presses levers and switches. Sound of tape rev
ersing. There is a hum and lights flash on and off. A blurred image of a lady in the street comes up on one of the monitors.)
Enid: Hold on, Mrs Pettigrew's coming back from the doctor's.
Gladys: All right, bring her up on two. What's the duration reading on the oscillator?
Enid: 48.47.
Gladys: Well that's a long time for someone who's just had a routine checkup.
Enid: (reading a graph on a computer) Yes, her pulse rate's 146!
Gladys: Zoom in on the 16mm and hold her, Enid.
Enid: Roger, Gladys.
Gladys: I'll try and get her on the twelve-inch. (she climbs into the control seat of the huge mobile telescope; we cut to the view through Gladys's telescope - out of Jbcus at first, but then sharper as she zooms in towards the side door of Number 24) Move the curtain, Enid. (the curtain is opened a little) Thank you, love.
(Cut to the interior of Mrs Neves's kitchen once again. It is absolutely full of lifeboatmen. They are all talking happily and drinking cups of tea. We pick up the conversation between two them.)
First Lifeboatman: Yes, it's one of those new self-righting models. Newhaven was about the first place in the country to get one.
Second Lifeboatman: What's the displacement on one of them jobs then?
First Lifeboatman: Oh it's about I40-150 per square inch.
Mrs Neves: Who's for fruit cake?
All: Oh yes, please, please.
Mrs Neves: Yes, right, macaroons, that's two dozen fruit cakes, half a dozen macaroons. Right ho. Won't be a jiffy then.
(She puts a scarf on, picks up a basket and goes out of the front door. As she opens door, we hear the sound of a storm which carries us into the next shot. Cut to the deck of a lifeboat; rain-lashed, heaving, wind-tossed Mrs Neves struggles against the gale force winds along the deck. She hammers on a hatch in the forward part of the lifeboat.)
Mrs Neves: Yoohoo! Mrs Edwards!
(The hatch opens and a cosy shop-keeping pepperpot sticks her head out.)
Mrs Edwards: Hello.
Mrs Neves: Hello, two dozen fruit cakes and half a dozen macaroons.
Mrs Edwards: Sorry love, no macaroons. How about a nice vanilla sponge.
Mrs Neves: Yes, that'll be lovely.
Mrs Edwards: Right ho. (sound of a ship's horn; they both look) There's that nice herring trawler come for their Kup Kakes. Excuse me. (she produces a loudhailer) Hello, Captain Smith?
Voice: Hallooooo!
(Mrs Edwards hurls a box of Kup Kakes off deck.)
Mrs Edwards: Kup Kakes to starboard.
Voice: Coming.
Mrs Neves: I'll pay you at the end of the week, all right?
Mrs Edwards: OK, right ho.
(Mrs Neves struggles back along the deck. Cut to stock film of Ark Royal in a storm.)
Mrs Neves: Here; it's the Ark Royal, Doris. Have you got their rock buns ready?
(Sound of a ship's horn.)
Mrs Edwards: Hang on!
(Doris appears at the hatch, and hands over two cake boxes.)
Doris: Here we are, five for them and five for HMS Eagle.
Mrs Edwards: Right ho..(takes them and throws them both overboard; an officer climbs up the side of the boat) Yes?
Officer: HMS Defiant? Two set teas please.
Mrs Edwards: Two set teas, Doris. Forty-eight pence. There we are, thank you.
(Money is handed over. The teas emerge on two little trays with delicate crockery, little teapots, milk jugs, etc.)
Officer: By the way, do you do lunches?
Mrs Edwards: No, morning coffee and teas only.
Officer: Right ho. (holding the teas he goes up to edge and jumps overboard)
* * *
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'Storage Jars'/
The Show So Far
As featured in the Flying Circus TV Show - Episode 33
* * *
The cast:
PRESENTER
Eric Idle
ROGERS
Terry Jones
* * *
The sketch:
(Cut to very quick series of stills of storage jars.)
CAPTION: 'STORAGE JARS'
(Urgent documentary music. Mix through to an impressive documentary set. Zoom in fust to presenter in a swivd chair. He swing round to face the camera.)
Presenter: Good evening and welcome to another edition of 'Storage Jars'. On tonight's programme Mikos Antoniarkis, the Greek rebel leader who seized power in Athens this morning, tells us what he keeps in storage jars. (quick cut to photo of a guerrilla leader with a gun; sudden dramatic chord; instantly cut back to the presenter) From strife-torn Bolivia, Ronald Rodgets reports on storage jars there. (still of a Bolivian city and again dramatic chord and instantly back to the presenter) And closer to home, the first dramatic pictures of the mass jail-break near the storage jar factory in Maidenhead. All this and more in storage jars!
(Cut to a road in front of a heap of smoking rubble. Dull thuds of mortar. Reporter in short sleeves standing in tight shot. Explosions going off behind him at intervals.)
Rodgers: This is La Paz, Bolivia, behind me you can hear the thud of mortar and the high-pitched whine of rockets, as the battle for control of this volatile republic shakes the foundations of this old city. (slowly we pull out during this until we see in front of him a fairly long trestle table set out with range of different-sized storage jar) But whatever their political inclinations these Bolivians are all keen users of storage jars. (the explosions continue behind him) Here the largest size is used for rice and for mangoes - a big local crop. Unlike most revolutionary South American states they've an intermediary size in between the 21b and 51b jars. This gives this poor but proud people a useful jar for apricots, plums and stock cubes. The smallest jar - this little 2oz jar, for sweets, chocolates and even little shallots. No longer used in the West it remains here as an unspoken monument to the days when La Paz knew better times. Ronald Rodgers, 'Storage Jars', La Paz.
Continues on to. . .
(ANIMATION: television is bad for your eyes.)
Voice Over
(and CAPTION:) 'THE SHOW SO FAR'
Cut to a man sitting at a desk with a script.
Mr Tussaud
Hello, the, er, show so far...well it all started with the organist losing all his clothes as he sat down at the organ, and after this had happened and we had seen the titles of the show, we saw Biggles dictating a letter to his secretary, who thought he was Spanish, and whom he referred to as a harlot and a woman of the night, although she preferred to be called a courtesan. Then we saw some people trying to climb a road in Uxbridge. And then there were some cartoons and then some lifeboatmen came into a woman's sitting room and after a bit the woman went out to buy some cakes on a lifeboat and then a naval officer jumped into the sea. Then we saw a man telling us about storage jars from Bolivia, then there were some more cartoons and a man told us about what happened on the show so far and a great hammer came down and hit him on the head. (he frowns) I don't remember that? (a big hammer hits him on the head)
Quick cut to 'It's' man.
It's Man
Lemon curry?
Continues to The Cheese Shop
* * *
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The Cheese Shop
* * *
About the Sketch:
This sketch not only appeared in the Flying Circus TV Show - Episode 24, it was also featured on their albums - 'The Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief', 'The Monty Python Instant Record Collection' (UK version), 'The Monty Python Instant Record Collection' (US version) and ''Monty Python's The Final Ripoff'.
* * *
The cast:
CUSTOMER
John Cleese
WENSLYDALE
Michael Palin
* * *
The sketch:
Customer walks in the Henry Wenslydale's Cheese shop and walks past the bazouki player.
Customer: Good
Morning.
Wenslydale: Good morning, Sir. Welcome to the National Cheese Emporium!
Customer: Ah, thank you, my good man.
Wenslydale: What can I do for you, Sir?
Customer: Well, I was, uh, sitting in the public library on Thurmon Street just now, skimming through "Rogue Herrys" by Hugh Walpole, and I suddenly came over all peckish.
Wenslydale: Peckish, sir?
Customer: Esuriant.
Wenslydale: Eh?
Customer: 'Ee, Ah wor 'ungry-loike!
Wenslydale: Ah, hungry!
Customer: In a nutshell. And I thought to myself, "a little fermented curd will do the trick," so, I curtailed my Walpoling activites, sallied forth, and infiltrated your place of purveyance to negotiate the vending of some cheesy comestibles!
Wenslydale: Come again?
Customer: I want to buy some cheese.
Wenslydale: Oh, I thought you were complaining about the bazouki player!
Customer: Oh, heaven forbid: I am one who delights in all manifestations of the Terpsichorean muse!
Wenslydale: Sorry?
Customer: 'Ooo, Ah lahk a nice tuune, 'yer forced too!
Wenslydale: So he can go on playing, can he?
Customer: Most certainly! Now then, some cheese please, my good man.
Wenslydale: (lustily) Certainly, sir. What would you like?
Customer: Well, eh, how about a little red Leicester.
Wenslydale: I'm, a-fraid we're fresh out of red Leicester, sir.
Customer: Oh, never mind, how are you on Tilsit?
Wenslydale: I'm afraid we never have that at the end of the week, sir, we get it fresh on Monday.