by John Cleese
Which is why what happened next was of such startling importance.
On Saturday 26 April, Alan Hutchison came back to our digs, waving a couple of tickets for that afternoon’s matinee at the Arts Theatre, which he had heard was ‘really good’. And three hours later I found myself watching the funniest, most brilliant and utterly joyful performance I have ever seen in my life. Beyond the Fringe, with Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller, Dudley Moore and Alan Bennett, featured four comic geniuses so hilarious that I experienced a reaction I have never had since: as each sketch ended, I felt a pang of disappointment, immediately replaced by exhilaration as the lights came back up to reveal a different combination of the four about to start a new sketch.
The material itself was so astonishingly fresh, not least because it made fun of major authority figures in a way we simply hadn’t seen before. Peter Cook’s impersonation of a doddering old Harold Macmillan (‘I went to Germany to see the Chancellor, Herr . . . Herr . . . herr and there’) was hilarious in any case, but it was also so rude, so contemptuous, that the sheer shock of it forced laughter of a phenomenal volume. When they played Civil Defence officials explaining the steps the government was going to take to defend the British people against nuclear attack, and Dudley, from the audience, remarked that the four-minute warning did not give people much time, and Peter Cook retorted that he ‘would remind doubters that some people in this great country of ours can run a mile in four minutes’, not only was there a side-splitting howl, but the government’s defence policy seemed to collapse at the same time. And Alan Bennett’s mock sermon brought a kind of screaming laughter I had never heard before: there was hysteria in it, the hysteria of liberation as the audience realised they would never, ever, have to listen respectfully again to the kind of bone-headed rubbish we were all so familiar with. ‘Life,’ his clergyman said, ‘is rather like opening a tin of sardines. We all of us are looking for the key. And I wonder how many of you here tonight have wasted years of your lives looking behind the kitchen dressers of this life for that key. I know I have.’
There was pure absurdity, too: Dudley’s one-legged man auditioning for the role of Tarzan; Peter Cook’s astonishing monologues, which had a kind of insane logic (Jonathan called it ‘schizophrenic’) that totally unhinged audiences despite its thoughtful pedantic energy; and for me the funniest scene of all, where the cast played four bland, half-witted, overconfident public school boys in a restaurant, unable to locate their wallets – a sketch almost without words, just consisting of the waffling noises such people make – during which I discovered I had my scarf in my mouth and was chewing on it: ordinary laughter could not on its own release the joyous energy that had taken over my body.
I have one final memory from two hours of utter comedy bliss – a moment of the most exquisite embarrassment, as Jonathan and Peter told the audience that while they came from good families and had public school educations, Alan and Dudley were from the working class. Nevertheless, they said, it was proving to be an enjoyable and stimulating experience to be working with them and treating them as equals. Alan now pointed out that while Dudley and he were indeed working class, some of the audience might not realise that Jonathan Miller was a Jew, and that Alan himself would rather be working class than a Jew. Dudley mused how awful it would be to be working class and a Jew, at which point, Jonathan interrupted to say that he wasn’t really a Jew, ‘Just Jew-ish. I don’t go the whole hog, you know.’ I’d never seen an audience reaction like the one this produced: half of them howled at such prejudices being discussed in this casual, factual manner; the other half froze with gut-wrenching horror, thereby providing the first half of the audience with more to laugh at, albeit in a slightly sneaky way.
What a show! Off they went to London to launch the ‘Official Opening of the Satirical Sixties’, as Michael Frayn calls it, and to earn phenomenal success.
Meanwhile, back at the Footlights, we were in the first stages of producing our annual revue, Double Take. Our director had, by some mysterious process, been chosen: a friendly, shaggy chap called Trevor Nunn, who had apparently produced several successful plays for the university drama society. After a few anxious hours, he announced the cast of the 1962 revue: Humphrey Barclay, Robert Atkins, Graham Chapman, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Tony Hendra, Alan George, me, and two non-Footlights people, Miriam Margolyes and Nigel Brown, both of whom came from the world of Cambridge drama.
In view of what I am about to write, I want to make it clear that being in the 1960s Footlights revue was a very happy, enjoyable and interesting experience.
From the 1962 revue. I did not write the accompanying text.
That being said, why does the prospect of actually telling you about it not fill me with excitement? Whatever the reason, it must be a sign that I should not linger on details, as I can scarcely expect you to be more interested in it than I am.
The first thing to say about the show is that it was as though Beyond the Fringe had never happened. Perhaps because so much of the material had already been written during the year for the Smokers; perhaps because unconsciously we knew better than to draw comparisons. So it was very predictable, the sort of thing the Footlights usually did. I thought it was terrific, of course, but I was wrong.
Nevertheless, the moment we met Trevor we realised this was someone who knew what he was doing. His right-hand man was Humphrey, the only one of us to have been in a Footlights revue before. First, they gathered the best sketches from the year’s six Smokers, and Trevor cast them. Then, writing with Humphrey, he created opening and closing numbers and wrote some material for Miriam (the rest of us were hopeless at this, as we had literally never written for a woman).
Next, we started rehearsing. It really excited me to work with a director who would let us play and experiment, but who was also in control in a way that made us feel safe that we were moving in the right direction and at the right speed to produce a proper show. But what I liked most was being part of a team, and working with a common aim in a co-operative spirit. The in-jokes, the friendly teasing and the mutual helpfulness created a confidence, a feeling of being emotionally supported, that was the most motivating force that I had ever experienced. I’d had a taste of it playing in Clifton sports teams, but nothing like this.
So far as the actual show was concerned, there were ten of us in the cast, and we all had about the same amount to do. I had one monologue about the astronomical statistics; a sketch with Tim and Graham about mountaineering, based on a hair-raising climb we had actually done; another sketch with Tim and Graham, where I refereed a karate contest between them in which a moment’s pressure on the right nerve would produce phenomenal convulsions; a full-cast number about a board of directors presenting a retiring employee with a loaf of bread; two other full-cast numbers; and finally, a couple of musical numbers about which the less said the better.
I was, without doubt, not one of the stronger performers in the show (garnering one passing mention in the four reviews we received). Several of the others had much stronger material which showed off their greater talents: Chapman’s mime; Hendra’s splendid operatic take-offs; Brooke-Taylor’s talent for funny, precise physical comedy; Barclay’s bland authority figures; and Margolyes’ magnificently overblown monologues.
Yet despite the fact I made a minimal impact on the show, I was proud to be in it. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience. I believed it was a very good show, and so did the critics, the audiences were warm and enthusiastic, the whole thing was just fine.
So why does it not seem interesting to me in retrospect? Because it was conventional? Because there was no overall style or shape to the show? Because the best performers were in the 1963 show, too, and I shall be going on about them at inordinate length?
No, I think it’s simply because there was nothing in the whole damn show that was really funny. And I think that, deep down, that’s what has always really motivated me. When I’ve had enough artistic control, I’ve always aimed at being as funny
as I can possibly be – not at being clever or witty or amusing or charming or whimsical or quite funny – all the things that our revue could claim to be. And being really funny is much harder than being clever or witty or etc., etc. And we weren’t quite up to that yet.
But there were four priceless things that I learned. Firstly, the incomparable comic education you get from performing the same piece night after night. It means you can carry out a series of little experiments, discovering what works and what doesn’t, and if it doesn’t, trying a little cut here, a rephrasing there, then trying different performance variations until you hit on the one that fixes the problem. Every single night you learn something more about the psychology of audiences. And so few non-professionals are lucky enough to get sufficient performances to experience this.
Secondly, Double Take brought home to me that I really only had one talent – timing. People think of me now as quite a physical comedian but in my early days I didn’t move well – I was tentative and awkward. When I was on form, however, my verbal timing could be really good, partly because I listened to audiences very carefully and was able to adjust to their reaction very fast. There is a split second after you do a joke when you have to decide whether to go on, or to wait for the laugh. If you go on, and then they laugh, you tread on that laugh and suppress it, and then have to repeat the line again, which is inelegant and loses you pace; but if you wait and there isn’t a laugh, the audience may pick up that something’s misfired.
Thirdly, I realised I was much more afflicted by nerves than the rest of the cast. Some people love to perform, and I envy them, but I was often scared that I would make a mistake, get a rhythm wrong, not get the laugh. It was a mixture of lack of confidence and setting myself high standards. Comedians are always talking about how they see the audience as a potentially hostile force that has to be won over. For my first few years that’s exactly how I felt. And my only strength – my timing – depends on confidence; you cannot do great comedy if you are not relaxed. I think there is an exact parallel between timing in comedy and timing in sport: when you time an off-drive in cricket, or a forehand in tennis, the ball flies away effortlessly. But that only happens when you are playing with confidence and nothing tightens up as you make the shot. It is the same with comedy: any anxiety, any tension, and the flow goes wrong, you snatch at the joke, you force too hard, you lose the rhythm. But when the confidence is there, it is such a great feeling when the audience gets on a roll, and you play them as you would play a fish, keeping the line slightly taut but not tight – now letting them have a little slack, then reeling them in a touch – as you bathe in their laughter and their enjoyment. Work doesn’t get much better than that.
Fourthly, I began to notice after about fifteen performances that the greatest cure for anxiety is familiarity. The better you know the sketch (not just the words, but the moves and the props and the sets and the feel of the theatre), the more effortlessly it starts to flow, and the less opportunity there is for distraction, which is always the cause of a lapse.
And in addition to all those lessons, Double Take gave me my first taste of fame!
One night as I was walking back past the Arts Theatre after the show had ended, I was recognised by a family who said, ‘Look! He was in the show’, and they pointed and waved. I can still remember the sudden feeling of warmth around my heart that swelled and swelled and lifted my spirits. It was as though I had been accepted into a new family, and acknowledged as having brought them something special that they really appreciated. It was only a moment, but it was wonderful, and they didn’t even know my name. It was a long time before something like this happened again, and in today’s celebrity culture it must be hard to imagine that a tiny moment of recognition like that could feel so uncomplicated and positive, quite uncontaminated by feelings of self-importance and competitiveness.
So my second year at Cambridge ended happily. The exams proved to be a doddle, and I had a visit to the Edinburgh Festival in August to look forward to: fifty of us drawn from the Footlights, the Cambridge Mummers and the Amateur Dramatic Club, and called collectively the Cambridge Theatre Company, were set to stage two ‘serious plays’, a late-night revue and a nightclub with cabaret.
Meanwhile there were a few weeks to kill and Alan asked me if I wanted to earn some pocket money by digging holes on a building site for the offices of Which? magazine. We’d be paid three shillings and sixpence an hour. This turned out to be one of the most enjoyable tasks I have ever undertaken – hours and hours digging away in great weather, listening to the England–Australia Test matches, chatting with Alan, and every six hours racking up yet another pound. Not much to do in the evenings except read.
In the middle of August, staggering under the weight of my pound notes, I hitchhiked to London, jumped on a coach with the other members of the Cambridge Theatre Company, and spent twelve hours travelling to Edinburgh while trying to do the Times crossword with Graham. Looking back now, I find it odd to think that the pair of us had never performed a sketch together in Double Take, and that we had only co-written two pieces for it (though we penned two others with Tim Brooke-Taylor). Yet people recall thinking of us as a team. Graham had graduated that summer, and after Edinburgh would be heading off to St Bartholomew’s Hospital to become a doctor, while, in a year’s time, I would be set to become a solicitor. Ah, well . . . we still had time for some good laughs in Edinburgh before we said au revoir.
Our first laugh came when we arrived (with twenty-two clues uncompleted) and saw the magnificent house Edinburgh University had lent us for our stay. Unfortunately that’s all it was – a magnificent house. It was completely empty. Not a stick of furniture to be seen, though we found marks showing where chairs and tables and sideboards had once been. We were each handed a pillow, an inflatable lilo and a sheet, and given the news that there were three bathrooms between the fifty of us. I have never seen such queues. Then we were given ration cards, one for each meal. It was like the Blitz, with great comradeship but less noise. Graham encouraged us to sing patriotic songs, to keep our spirits up.
Next we took what might easily have passed as a van, and rode over to see where we would be performing. We had been lent a Presbyterian hall, where a group of carpenters, all to our surprise from Cambridge, were busy erecting a stage. Then to our even greater surprise, Trevor Nunn, who was putting on a production of Brand, informed us that he needed some extra villagers, and summoned us to a rehearsal room, where we were coached in how to crawl along a floor, shouting the word ‘fish’, while giving the impression we were ascending a mountain. Brand is one of Ibsen’s heavier comedies and the whole miserable experience soon had us fuming. We all liked Trevor but we had not signed up for this, so I’m afraid that we misbehaved, laughing in the wrong places and pretending we had hurt our knees.
Fortunately, we were rescued by the nightclub organisers, who decided they needed a cabaret act from us – a twenty-minute show on the hour every hour – to start the following evening.
On our first night, Graham, Alan George and I were still huddled off-stage agreeing the running order of the first show when one of the nightclub student impresarios appeared and said, ‘It’s completely deserted. Relax. We’ll do the first show at seven.’ ‘OK,’ we said. Graham lit his pipe, while Alan and I started running our lines. Then the guy raced back. ‘You’re on! The audience has arrived.’ So we rushed up the stairs singing our opening number, and accustoming our eyes to the spotlight. And after a few moments we located the audience. There were two of them, a nice young couple in their twenties, who had made the mistake of looking into the club, had been pounced on, given a glass of wine each, and rushed to the best seats in the house – the two right in the middle of the front row. The young woman, realising that she and her boyfriend were only about ten feet from a cast that outnumbered them, registered shock, then fear, and then put her head in her hands and began to cry. Her boyfriend put his arm around her, gestured to us ‘She’ll be all right in a mo
ment’, and started trying to laugh to encourage us. The sight of his poor girlfriend sobbing at our antics was heart-rending, but there was also something horribly comic about it. We made the decision to bring the show to an early end, allowing the young woman to run wailing into the street, pursued by her boyfriend, who clapped our performance over his shoulder as he disappeared into the distance.
A couple of days later, the Footlights cast started rehearsing for the late-night show – when we were allowed to. By which I mean that it had become clear that the ‘serious’ actors were the ones whose rehearsal requirements had to be catered to, while we had to fit in and use the stage and rehearsal room when the important artists didn’t need them. To say this got up our noses was an understatement.
However, when the play started, we saw vengeance done. The dramatic actors faced audiences of two or three dozen, who at the end of each performance had to fight their way through the excited crowds waiting to rush in to grab their seats for the Footlights show. We were packed every single night. Lawrence Durrell and Henry Miller came. Twice! But I expect it all seemed a bit vulgar to the drama crowd.
Our show had definitely got better since its Cambridge incarnation. It was now only sixty minutes long, teaching us that if you have an average show, and you can dump half of it, it doesn’t get a bit better – it gets a lot better. In fact, there seems to be a basic, rather brutal rule of comedy: ‘The shorter the funnier.’ I began to discover that whenever you could cut a speech, a sentence, a phrase or even a couple of words, it makes a greater difference than you would ever expect.
I also soon found that late performances are easier than matinees. Audiences get more relaxed as the day goes on, and by the time our audience arrived they were so loose and responsive that the shows became a joy to do. When you play to a great audience, they lift you up, and the laughter hanging in the air makes you funnier – you’re in the moment, free of inhibition and so able to try little things that you have never done before – and they work! The only drawback is that the next night is invariably never quite so good.