So, Anyway...

by John Cleese

  Inspector: So when Henderson went to the antique shop, to get the map from Colonel Harding (whack! Aaagh!), he happened to see Lady Pendleton emerging from the Chinese laundry. Take that! (splat!)

  Villain: Exactly, Inspector, so Henderson thought . . . etc., etc.

  I managed to persuade Adrian Upton, fresh from his recent combat with the son of the Secretary General of the United Nations, to perform the fight with me, which involved much enjoyable rehearsal, and on the night of the performance all three sketches went well and the three of us were elected members of the Footlights.

  If it seems that I have taken an age to relate to you some trivial auditionings for a mere Footlights Smoker, it’s because all three sketches turned out to have an unexpected afterlife. The newsreading sketch was performed later that year in the annual Footlights revue, and then again on That Was The Week That Was, when David Frost read it as the final item in the last show of the first series. The Stanley Unwin rip-off has become a standard part of my cabaret routine, last performed on my one-man-show UK tour in 2011, fifty years after its first appearance at the Footlights clubroom. And the plot-explication fight appeared in the 1962 Footlights revue (the first in which I performed), then on That Was The Week That Was, and then again, rewritten and expanded, in the 1963 Footlights revue, which played in the West End for five months and finished up on Broadway in 1964.

  However, if you think my first Smoker appearances seemed to bode well, they didn’t. My next few suggestions were so feeble they were turned down, and the couple that were accepted for performance only just avoided being embarrassing. This was probably because I was trying to think up funny ideas of my own, instead of stealing a good one from writers who knew what they were doing.

  The fact is that it is exceedingly difficult to write really good comedy. Those who can do it possess a very rare talent. Of course, there are a few writers who can think up decent jokes. A few more can do parody well. But the number who can invent an original comedy situation, and build that situation in a convincing but unpredictable way, and, above all, get the emotional development of the characters right . . . is infinitesimally small.

  On the other hand, there exist vast hordes who can write bad comedy, and they do so in immense quantities, entirely uninhibited by any awareness of just how atrocious it is. At the beginning of my career, I often used to read scripts that I had been sent by unknown writers, and it seemed to take me about twenty years before I realised that they were all, always, awful.

  So if I may give a word of advice to any young writer who, despite the odds, wants to take a shot at being funny, it is this:

  Steal.

  Steal an idea that you know is good, and try to reproduce it in a setting that you know and understand. It will become sufficiently different from the original because you are writing it, and by basing it on something good, you will be learning some of the rules of good writing as you go along. Great artists may merely be ‘influenced by’ other artists, but comics ‘steal’ and then conceal their loot.

  Still, even if I couldn’t come up with any decent ideas in these early days, I could at least use the Footlights clubroom. What a delight that was! I found there the nicest bunch of fellows I had come across. Friendly, funny, good-natured, from a wide mix of subjects, bright without being show-offs – a complete contrast to the occasional group of actors who would from time to time infiltrate the club. Invariably dressed in black leather jackets and jeans, the actors would gather around a table and sit, leaning forward, carrying on intense soul-searching discussions about ‘motivation’ or ‘alienation’, which made me anxious because I didn’t know what those words meant, and felt rather rattled by the sheer intensity of it all.

  Looking back, I now see why the actors were so different. It was because they all intended to become professionals. The Footlights chaps, by contrast, had no intention at all of making careers in the chancy world of show business: they were all headed for the law, medicine, teaching, advertising, and they took part in Footlights activities for the sheer fun of it.fn1

  So, I was far more concerned about the exams I was to take in June. This was no doubt in part because I had no sense of what level of knowledge was expected by the examiners and this gave rise to a lurking sense of panic. My worry about whether I was doing enough work was neatly summed up by a cartoon in a Cambridge magazine showing two undergraduates sunbathing by the Cam. One is saying, ‘If only we had done some work in the winter, there wouldn’t be this mad panic now.’ In my case the anxiety increased, but my hours of study didn’t.

  As I panicked a letter arrived, inviting me to audition for the 1961 Footlights revue. I was initially quite excited, until I realised that this was a mere formality extended to every member. I turned up at the Arts Theatre nevertheless, only to be asked to sing ‘Mama’s Little Baby Loves Shortnin’ Bread’ and to dance the cha-cha-cha. A sickening sense of déjà vu descended on me. I felt like those poor French infantrymen in the First World War, who went over the top and ran towards the German guns, bleating like sheep.

  Fortunately it was all over in a few seconds.

  But there was an unexpected award for my humiliation, because as I stood after coming off stage in a state of shock, a tall chap waiting in the queue for his punishment offered a few words of consolation, and then minutes later I was having coffee with my main writing partner for the next twenty years.

  My first impression of Graham Chapman was of physical strength. He was slightly shorter than me, but much tougher, in the lean, angular way of a sportsman. He did not surprise me when he said he was a medical student who climbed mountains and played rugby football. He was wearing a rather hairy tweed jacket and heavy brogues, and he soon lit up a pipe. He seemed dead butch, and slightly taciturn. We chatted for a time, had a couple of laughs, and then drifted on our way. The only clear memory I have is that I didn’t really connect with him, and consequently didn’t feel I particularly liked him.

  Exam panic now peaked. One evening I was looking so depressed that Martin Davies-Jones picked up the old-fashioned gas ring on which we could boil a saucepan, and offered it to me. I didn’t even smile. In the event, though, my fears turned out to have been misplaced. The exam papers were not bad, and all the worrying proved to have been a waste of time. The problem was that I carried around with me a tendency to feel that other people’s respect for me would vanish if what I did was second rate. And while I accept that this ‘perfectionism’ is likely to stimulate the production of better work, it doesn’t, unfortunately, go hand in hand with a relaxed and happy attitude to life. This is especially the case in comedy, because if you are trying to make people laugh, and failing, it is so intensely embarrassing. There is no escape. As my daughter Camilla once said, ‘Being a comedian has a lot in common with being a matador. The feedback is so instant you can’t argue about it.’

  After the exams I went to see the Footlights revue that I had auditioned for. I was impressed by the professional sheen to its presentation, and I liked the individual performers. David Frost in particular stood out, and I felt a thrill when he read out some of our news items, the ‘Cornish Mining Disaster’ going particularly well. I had occasionally seen David in the clubroom. He was obviously a big star in university circles, and I had been very impressed by his friendliness towards us small fry. It’s strange to think that he would become the single strongest force shaping my career.

  And now I headed back to St Peter’s to help Mr Tolson out with a medium-sized teaching emergency. Apparently, a teacher had resigned rather suddenly and the school needed someone to fill in for the last six weeks of term. From my point of view, the timing was perfect.

  When I arrived back at St Peter’s, I was touched by the warmth of my reception by the Tolsons and the staff with whom I had been teaching just a year before. After dinner Mr Tolson took me into his study and invited me to sit down. Then he slumped in his chair and revealed the circumstances of the emergency that had necessitated my recall. Apparently,
he explained, before the summer term had started he had needed to find a new teacher, and, having interviewed several applicants, had opted for one with particularly good qualifications. After a few days, though, it became clear that this new teacher was a bit odd: he wore strange, almost inexplicable pieces of clothing; he revealed startling areas of ignorance; he occasionally let out disagreeing sounds during church service; and, what seemed to worry Mr Tolson most, he insisted on holding a six-foot piece of bamboo while umpiring cricket matches. Everyone had tried to be tolerant, but there had been unease.

  Then, one night, Mr Tolson was woken by shouting. Two men had gained entrance to the school grounds – two very angry men – who alleged that the teacher had been getting up to no good in the local town and that their sons had been involved. There was a public fuss, and the name of St Peter’s School was mentioned. Mr Tolson felt that he had been guilty of grave professional misconduct.

  I liked Mr Tolson so much – he was such a decent man – that I tried to defend him. ‘But, sir,’ I said, ‘you said he had excellent qualifications.’

  Mr Tolson looked at me. ‘I never bothered to check them, John. You see, when he came for his interview he was wearing an MCC tie.’ I nearly laughed out loud, but then I felt sad for him: that his deference to a much-hallowed institution – the home of English cricket – had let him down so badly. He was devastated. The rest of the term, though, passed off pleasantly, and a few weeks later I left St Peter’s for the third and last time.

  I used to think that the world was basically sane with patches of madness here and there which would recede as rationality and good jokes pushed their boundaries ever inwards. Now I have the opposite view entirely. But one of the patches of sanity that I treasure is my memory of St Peter’s, where people seemed to be doing a useful job in a conscientious way, where money seemed quite secondary, and learning, good manners and good sportsmanship were the values that guided its inhabitants. It was, as Mr Bartlett would have said, highly civilised.

  * * *

  fn1 Well, in 1961, anyway. Within five years all that had changed. Because the 1963 revue, Cambridge Circus, was so successful and every member of the London cast became part of ‘The Profession’, students started coming to Cambridge with the specific intent of using the Footlights as a gateway to the Wonderful World of Light Entertainment.

  Chapter 7

  I SPENT THE rest of that summer living with my parents (who had now moved to Totnes in Devon), loafing around, reading and playing cricket like some 1920s aristocrat, before returning to Cambridge in September. (It never occurred to me to take a job: my ‘work’ was at university.) But before I talk about my second year I need to backtrack a little to mention something that had happened the previous term. A very boring something, but, for me, enormously significant.

  Towards the end of my first year, I had suddenly remembered that in a few months’ time Downing would cease to provide me with a room in college, and that I had better start looking for digs for the rest of my undergraduate studies at Cambridge. I strolled off to the relevant university office and asked what advice they could give me. And the advice was that I should have started looking about three months earlier, when everyone else had been, because there was now nothing left less than about thirty minutes’ bike ride from the centre of town. The moment of horror that hit me then was truly unforgettable: a vision of endless Sisyphean cycling through the Fens – and I couldn’t even ride a bike.

  And then: ‘Oh!’ said a nice friendly lady in the office. ‘What was that call we got this morning?’ She checked her notes and told me that a Mrs Risely, who offered digs in the middle of town, had phoned to say that she had just had a row with Queens’ College, had told them that their undergraduates would never be allowed to stay in her rooms again, and wanted the university office to know that they were therefore vacant and available once more.

  Ten minutes later, I was shaking Mrs Risely by the hand. Not only were her rooms in the middle of town, but they were right smack in the middle of town, in the old part, about five minutes’ walk from the Law School. What’s more – and here is the spooky, coincidental, fateful, omen-packed bit – just two minutes from the Footlights clubroom! It was a gift from God! And even better – how could it be better? – the rooms were for four students, so I was able to take my three great Downing pals Alan, Martin and Tony into the centre of town with me.

  With all that sorted, I was able to return to Cambridge that autumn and settle into the easiest and most convenient of routines: a couple of law lectures, a stroll back to digs, a bit of study, round the corner to the Footlights clubroom for a cheap lunch, a cheerful chat with other members, back to digs, write an essay, take a break, dinner, wander back to digs, a couple of hours’ study and over to the clubroom again for two packets of cheese and onion crisps, and a couple of pineapple juices with the most relaxed, good-natured and funny guys in the whole university.

  On my first visit of the term to the Footlights I saw a few faces I knew, and several I didn’t. Spotting a group huddled around a noticeboard, I strolled over and discovered that they were looking at a list of that year’s Footlights committee. To my amazement, my name was on it. To several other people’s amazement, so were theirs. We hardly recognised each other from the previous year and yet we had all been selected. I’d been made registrar: nobody knew what it meant so I assumed it was not onerous.

  The reason for our sudden promotions was that every single senior Footlighter had left in June, and before the last one departed he had written down any names he could remember from the years below and assigned them jobs on the committee. So the October 1961 Footlights committee were, in effect, all new boys. I vaguely remembered the new president, Robert Atkins, who had done a couple of funny sketches in Smokers, and I recognised Humphrey Barclay, who had actually been in the show with David Frost (Humphrey was the only one from our first-year intake to get into the cast). But otherwise we had to get to know each other virtually from scratch. This actually had a very positive effect. Because there was no hierarchy there was also a very informal and democratic atmosphere. So I began to spend time with Graham Chapman (I must have forgotten that I didn’t like him), Tony Hendra (a flamboyant Catholic, rather intellectual but wonderfully disrespectful), Tim Brooke-Taylor, David Hatch, Humphrey and a cluster of others, most of whom seemed to be at Pembroke College, just down the road from Downing. The Pembroke contingent started inviting me to have dinner there, and after a couple of months I realised that the Pembroke dinner staff assumed I was a member of the college. I therefore dined there scot-free most evenings for the next two years. In fact, I saw so little of Downing that when I did go in for a meal during my last year, I was challenged by the bursar on the grounds that I was not a member of the college.

  I grew to adore Pembroke: it was a very pretty college, not too big and with exquisite lawns. It also had a warm, welcoming atmosphere. And it was at the Pembroke Smokers that I first came across Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie, with whom I was later to do over a hundred radio shows. I was also introduced to Eric Idle, who proved to be extremely funny and who treated me with remarkable respect. Well, I am four years older . . .

  Life settled back into a routine, but a far more enjoyable one than I had experienced in my first year, partly because of the companionship at my digs and at the Footlights, and partly because I now got down to work properly, managing my work schedule better and so finding everything – contract law, torts, constitutional law – easier to handle, and therefore more interesting and enjoyable. I was also becoming more confident, for all my naivety, especially as there were no women to feel awkward and clueless around.

  I started trying to write more sketches for the Smokers, and found myself collaborating with Graham Chapman. Our first meeting hadn’t been particularly auspicious, but this time around I increasingly felt myself drawn to someone with the same sense of humour. When you begin to write comedy, the biggest worry is simply: is this funny? Writing with a partner en
sures you get priceless feedback and Graham and I worked together well: we found each other funny and when we did laugh, we really laughed, Graham screeching and me wheezing. We did not have a lot in common otherwise: his dad was a policeman, and he had been to a grammar school where he had been head boy, but we had similarly uneasy relationships with our mothers, which later on provided us with a lot of material. At this early stage we didn’t produce anything very good, except perhaps one parody of a sermon. Graham, like me, carried a grudge against the nonsense we had been fed at school in the name of religion and we had huge enjoyment writing a ponderous homily in which a vicar who begins by reading out the text about Lot’s wife being turned into a pillar of salt suddenly realises what an extraordinary thing this was to happen, and then speculates about God’s choice of condiment. When Graham performed it, it worked well, especially the punchline, delivered after a very long and puzzled pause – ‘Hymn 42!’ Graham later worked with the author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams: did our sermon inspire him when he pondered the answer to life, the universe and everything?

  I wrote some stuff on my own, including one sketch that made fun of the way broadcasters tried to enliven astronomical statistics. Talking about a star called Regella, I wrote: ‘It is a very bright star, over 360 billion times brighter than an ordinary 40-watt bulb. It is also very large. If you imagine this orange [at this point I held one up and showed it around] is the size of the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, then Regella is 3.2 trillion times the size of the Isle of Wight. And to give you some idea how large 3.2 trillion is . . .’ etc., etc., etc. Two Smokers were produced each term. They were perfectly enjoyable, but I think I was aware that there was nothing in them of outstanding quality.