PomPoms Up!

by Carol Cleveland

  They only had five weeks to shoot the entire film in – which some of them might say was a blessing – and it was made on an incredibly low budget. The total production cost was under £230,000…. which obviously meant various restrictions on expenses. For a start, horses were out! So instead the knights were accompanied by squires clapping coconut shells together, making a sound like horses’ hooves. This has turned out to be one of the best features of the film, as it’s so much funnier than the real thing would have been.

  The film was shot entirely on location, mainly in remote parts of Scotland, and I had been told to bring warm clothing, not just to wear off the set, but under my costume too. I arrived in Stirling, Scotland, about a week into the shoot and immediately made my way to Doune Castle, where the bulk of filming was taking place, blissfully unaware of any problems that might have arisen.

  Doune Castle was very impressive and I felt quite excited just looking at it. Originally, there were supposed to be four or five different castles featured throughout the film, but shortly before filming was due to commence the National Trust for Scotland withdrew permission for them to be used. With little time to go searching for others the boys had no choice but to make the best possible use of this one. Hence it was shot from every conceivable angle, to represent different castles.

  I walked around a bit, looking to find any one of the team, and saw Graham sitting on the ground, leaning back against a wall, cupping his head in his hands. I went over to say hello and saw that he was trembling. I thought it must be the cold but when he looked up at me I realised it wasn’t that at all. He was pale and sweaty and clearly had a bad case of the DT’s. He said:

  “Oh Carol…. hello…. sorry darling…. don’t feel so good today.”

  Apparently he’d been trying hard all week not to drink, but it was proving difficult. I believe the film crew had been told that if he asked them to get him a drink they mustn’t do so. I was later told that on the second day’s filming he had started shaking as he was preparing to cross the ‘Bridge of Death’ and had difficulty doing the scene. Eventually a crew member had to take his place on the bridge. This shouldn’t have been a problem for Graham, as he was a professional mountain climber. He did manage to curtail the drinking a bit after that and promised both himself and the others that he would give it up for good. It took another three years though, by which time I think the damage was done, sadly.

  Graham was chosen to play King Arthur for the simple reason that nobody else wanted to do it. Every one preferred to play lots of different cameo roles rather than being stuck in one character, but I think under the circumstances it probably suited Graham to concentrate on just the one. They all did their own stunts, I believe…. though I did hear a rumour that John had also chickened out at running across the ‘Bridge of Death.’ Apparently he’d had enough excitement after playing ‘TIM, the Enchanter’ the day before, when a strong wind had threatened to blow him backwards off the mountain peak he was standing on.

  Those who have seen the film will remember John as the Black Knight who has all his limbs severed by King Arthur (nice king!), but you mustn’t be fooled by John’s voice. The guy who did most of the hard work was a local man with only one leg. He’s got his arms tucked behind him when his arms are chopped off…. then a false leg goes, leaving him standing on his own leg. A suspended dummy was used when the second leg comes off. They then dug a hole for the poor guy to sit in when he’s nothing but a stump and he got terrible pins and needles in his own leg from being stuck in the ground for five hours. There was a fear that they might have to chop that leg off too!…. Only joking!

  They were right about the weather. It was very cold and it rained nearly every day, leaving mud aplenty. I was so pleased that my scenes were indoors! I felt sorry for the boys because not only were their string-net armour costumes very itchy and smelly after a while but as they were made of silver-painted wool they absorbed moisture from the rain and the poor souls were freezing! Only Graham had authentic chain-mail armour and I bet there were times when the others wished they HAD opted to play King Arthur! I heard that John was doing a lot of whingeing, which didn’t surprise me too much as he, more than anyone, hated any form of discomfort.

  Besides the miserable working conditions and lack of finance, the other problem they encountered was having two directors, neither of whom had directed a feature film before! They were also starring in the film, which didn’t help! Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam had agreed on most things up to now, but when it came to filming they discovered they had a very different approach to it. Terry J was mainly interested in the feel of the film and making it funny, whereas Terry G also wanted it to be funny but was more concerned with how it looked. Being a perfectionist he would spend hours on getting that look just right, which sometimes aggravated the others, particularly John. This did cause a fair bit of friction and a division within the group. It didn’t make things any easier for the film crew either, having spent hours setting up a shot for one Terry, only to have the other one come along later and change it all.

  All this became apparent to me when I arrived on set. There should have been a buzz around the place but instead there was a very frosty atmosphere and it wasn’t because of the cold. The scene they were shooting at that moment was of half a dozen knights doing a wonderfully whacky tap dance on top of a long table. I thought it was hysterically funny but nobody else was laughing and the film crew looked rather miserable. When I spoke to our wardrobe lady, Hazel, she said she was worried that they might down tools!

  That same evening everybody gathered in the hotel to watch the first ‘rushes’ of the film. No one had seen any up to this point and, not knowing what to expect, there was a lot of tension in the air. Graham knew just how to defuse it…. he went up to the bar and announced that all drinks were on him for the entire evening! The crew cheered up immediately and after a few bevvies we all went in to another room to watch the rushes. Everyone was amazed at how good they were! The film both looked amazingly authentic and also felt very funny at the same time. After that the crew happily worked on, even agreeing to a half cut in salary!

  Hence the atmosphere was much jollier when it came to shooting my ‘Castle Anthrax’ scenes. It probably helped that there were quite a lot of pretty young females involved – the crew were certainly smiling now! I play Zoot and twin sister, Dingo, watching over a castle full of not-so-innocent teenage virgins. I loved the naughty script. Over the years the boys have given me a number of naughty and rude things to say and I’ve come to the conclusion that they get quite a kick out of it! So, to please them, I added my own un-scripted words on the final take at the end of the sequence, when Sir Galahad is dragged away by the other knights. I said:

  “Oh, oh…. shit!”

  They kept in in the film and when it got a good laugh at the premiere, Terry J turned to me and gave me a big thumbs-up.

  There was only one of my scenes that I didn’t feel completely comfortable with and paradoxically that is when I break out of character and speak directly to the camera, telling the cinema audience how much I’m enjoying doing the scene! It just didn’t feel right to me or even particularly funny. Not surprisingly then, it’s now been cut out of the DVD release. Normally actors hate to have their scenes ending up on the cutting room floor, but in this case…. I’m glad!

  The film may have been hellish to make but it did extremely well at the box office and has continued to reap dividends ever since then – for me as well. Annually, for the past five years, I have presented a master-class for foreign students doing a film course at a local college. The film up for discussion is always Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I know it backwards by now…. but, happily it still makes me laugh!

  Since 2004 there’s been an annual pilgrimage by the film’s ardent fans to Doune Castle. Having not been able to procure any of the Pythons themselves, the organisers of the event were delighted when I accepted their invitation to join in the festivities a few years back. It was
rather strange seeing people of all ages dressed up as various characters from the film and enacting scenes from it. My favourite was their version of the Frenchman taunting the English knights – the man’s accent was even odder than John’s! At the end of the scene not only did they hurl a stuffed cow from the battlements but also every other stuffed animal known to man! It was an appropriately silly day, at the end of which I had to sign the inside of lots of coconut shells…. and I can tell you that it’s not easily done!

  Four years on the Pythons were ready to embark on their third film, The Life of Brian, but even this one very nearly didn’t happen. After the success of Monty Python and the Holy Grail they found it easier to get backing and Bernard Delfont with EMI Films were happy to finance it. But, with only three days to go before filming was due to commence, they got nervous about the subject matter and pulled out.

  It was George Harrison, friend of Eric’s and a big Python fan, who came to the rescue. He set up HandMade Films and invested three million pounds in the production. He was repaid with a small uncredited part in the film, ‘Mr Papadopoulos’ who had a one word line, “Hello.” However, with his heavy Liverpudlian accent, it came out as, “‘Ullo”…. so he had to be dubbed. I have a feeling George wouldn’t have minded though.

  Once the film got under way there were a lot of happy faces! Conditions were far more pleasurable than on the last film – no rain at all, just an abundance of glorious sunshine! The boys had swapped their woollen armour for brief togas and now we had just one director, Terry Jones. Terry G had conceded that Terry J’s film making approach was best suited for this one, while he got on with the animations and set design. At the end of each day’s work we went back to our lovely hotel on the beach and met up at the poolside bar to watch the sunset. It was idyllic, but I think the boys were a little concerned about what might be happening on the home front.

  A week or so before I was due to fly out and join them in Tunisia I was interviewed for one of the tabloids in which I briefly spoke about my upcoming film role. The next day I got a call from John enquiring what exactly I’d said to the press. He asked me not to say too much about the film as they wanted to keep it under wraps for now. I think there was no doubt that they all knew it might cause a wee bit of a furore when it was released!

  When I arrived at the hotel in Monastir I immediately felt like I was there on holiday. There were lots of people milling about in shorts and sundresses outside by the pool and at the inside bar. I was looking around when Graham came striding in from the beach. He gave me a big hug and kisses and said:

  “Carol darling…. you’re here! Isn’t this wonderful!? Sit down…. let me get you a drink!”

  This was quite a different Graham from the one I’d seen four years earlier when I first arrived on set for filming on The Holy Grail. This Graham was tanned, looked very healthy and happier than I’d seen him for a long time. The drink he ordered for himself was a fruit juice. He told me that he was completely off the booze now. Apparently John was also keen to play the lead role of Brian, but Graham was determined to ‘dry out’ in time to do it himself and he’d achieved it.

  He then told me just why he was feeling particularly exuberant at that moment. He’d just enjoyed a brief encounter with a Tunisian beach boy in one of the hotel’s beach huts. He’d started to go into detail when I decided I really should go and unpack!

  Tunisia was of course the perfect location for this film. For a start we were allowed to reuse the sets from Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth and many of the locals had already worked as extras on that film, so they knew how to take direction. In fact they were almost TOO good! In one scene five hundred of them were required to laugh loudly at something Brian says. To get them in the mood, they got a local comedian to tell them jokes. We couldn’t understand what he was saying, but he obviously wasn’t very good because they hardly laughed at all. So finally, in desperation, Terry J demonstrated by falling on his back and kicking his legs in the air in wild abandon, while laughing hysterically. All five hundred extras immediately followed suit! It was very funny indeed, but unfortunately it wasn’t caught on camera.

  My first scene was the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ in which I play ‘Mrs Gregory’, a grand Roman lady, standing with my husband at the back of the crowd, desperately trying to hear what Jesus is saying. When I tell the man (Michael) in front of me to: “Please do pipe down!” I get a punch in the nose! A big scuffle follows and Michael and I end up rolling around on the ground, grappling with each other. It was very silly and we two were giggling quite a lot when we suddenly realised it had gone quiet around us. We looked up to find that filming had stopped and everybody was just standing there enjoying our fight!

  Another memorable day was when Spike Milligan paid us a surprise visit on set. He happened to be holidaying there at the time and when the boys heard about it they gave him a call to offer him a job! We were doing the scene when all Brian’s followers are chasing him through the city, so Spike easily fitted into the crowd. As one of the great ad-libbers, he was allowed to improvise his one line, which was, “It’s a miracle.”

  We’d just started shooting the scene when Terry yelled, “Cut!” We were told there was something going on in the background and we turned to look, thinking he meant the extras were playing about. But, instead…. it was the amorous donkeys in the distance that were up to something! Personally, I think they should have kept that in. Come to think of it, maybe they did! We did about three takes and were just about to do another when we realised Spike, having got bored, had disappeared as suddenly as he’d arrived.

  I think one of everybody’s favourite scenes in the film is the one with Pontius Pilate, beautifully played by Michael. As Pontius Pilate was a real historical character he couldn’t be mucked about with TOO much. Michael decided on playing him as British ruling class, with some aristocratic inbreeding producing a speech impediment. Hence he had a “vewy stwange way of tawking!” Both he and John found it impossible not to laugh during filming and, if you look closely you’ll see their lips quivering slightly throughout the scene.

  One of the things I enjoyed most about doing this film was the fact that I was playing character roles, one of which rendered me totally unrecognisable. As one of Brian’s ‘sandal’ followers, I had my face dirtied up and half my teeth blacked out - even my own mother didn’t recognise me! She hated seeing me like that, but I loved it.

  I was in the make-up trailer one day, having this muck removed from my face when John was in there having a little bit applied to his, and I remember having to give him a telling off. John was a bit of a tease and sometimes came across as a bit of a bully too. He was having a little go at our new make-up girl. I knew that he was playing with her, but she was taking him seriously and was starting to get upset. As I got up to go I leant over him and said:

  “You’re a bully, John! Leave the poor girl alone!”

  He enjoyed that! I know, because he pursed his lips up into that little tight smile he sometimes has and sniggered to himself.

  As I mentioned earlier, John didn’t handle discomfort very well and there was one occasion when he did his best to avoid it…. while the rest of us had to suffer. We were about to shoot the final scene of the film where some of the main characters end up being crucified – myself included. We had to climb up a small hill to reach the crosses, and on this particular day it was rather chilly. I was wearing a toga and the men were mainly in loin cloths. Terry J was being very considerate of everyone and made sure that we could keep our coats on and not have to get up onto the crosses until absolutely necessary.

  The moment came when it was off with the coat and up on the cross. Not surprisingly, it wasn’t very comfortable! We had a little perch to rest our bottoms on and our wrists were loosely tied above with pretend nails that fitted over our hands – I may be the only one who kept mine as a souvenir! We were about to start rehearsing the scene when Terry said:

  “Where’s John?! Will someone please get Joh
n up here!”

  John slowly made his way up the hill while we literally hung around in the cold waiting for him and when he arrived, we saw that his costume was a long, thick cloak. I think if he hadn’t been crucified he might well have ended up being stoned that day!

  My husband Peter joined me during the second week, as he was going to be used in some of the scenes. It was nice to have him there and to be working together again. We stayed on a few extra days after filming to make a holiday of it. On our last day I purchased a large bird cage, which Peter tried to talk me out of because we’d have to carry it onto the plane. I bought it anyway and sat with it on my lap all the way back to London. We wouldn’t be able to do that nowadays!

  Life of Brian is now frequently rated as ‘one of the greatest comedy films of all time,’ but back in 1979 when the film was released it became one of the most controversial films of all time! It was picketed by rabbis, nuns and Mary Whitehouse and was shunned by the BBC and ITV. Thirty-nine local authorities in the UK banned it, some of which didn’t even see the film – indeed; some didn’t even have any cinemas! It was also banned in Ireland, Norway and a chunk of the American Bible Belt. Some of these bans continued well into the twenty-first century and it wasn’t shown in Aberystwyth, Wales, until 2009. It was then attended by the mayor, Sue Jones-Davies, who by coincidence had played Brian’s mother Judith Iscariot in the film!

  The film was also the subject of much debate in the press and on TV…. the question being, ‘Is it or is it not blasphemous?’ Interestingly enough even the Pythons couldn’t seem to agree on that one! During a televised discussion in 1998, Terry Jones said:

  “I think the film is heretical, it’s not blasphemous.”

  Eric agrees, “It’s heresy.”

  John disagrees, “I don’t think it’s heresy. It’s making fun of the way people misunderstand the teaching of….”