by John Cleese
The second take went fine, but afterwards, in the green room, I was taken to task by a friend. ‘How could you get it wrong?’ she said. ‘It was only four sentences.’ I started to explain, but she was on the attack and became quite seething about my lapse. I had already invited her to a dinner party at my place later that week, so I said, ‘Here’s a bet. If you can do it correctly at Friday’s dinner, I’ll give you £20.’ And I gave her the script.
On Friday, she arrived, and wanted to do it immediately, but I stalled her and introduced her to my friends and announced that dinner was served. Towards the end of the meal, I explained the bet, everyone got a bit excited, and I asked her if she wanted to leave the table to practise it. She declined, so I prolonged dinner by serving extra drinks (although she’d hardly drunk at all, of course), and then we went into the living room to get ready for her performance, and I remembered I had forgotten to make a phone call, so I ran off, and the ‘call’ took some time, and when I got back I asked her if she was ready, and she was, so I outlined the bet one more time and then said, ‘Cue!’ And, of course, she got about five syllables out before she fluffed. As she left later, I gave her my most saturnine smile and said, ‘Now you know why I screwed it up. And there are only five people here.’
Performing sketches, then, could still cause a little stress from time to time. So, too, could censorship problems – at least for the nice, late-middle-aged lady called Jane whose job it was to worry about these things. Tim and I were nominally in charge of the script (we had some sort of vague titles), so when there was an issue with it we were the ones who went to see Jane. She was very nice, but she worried about everything.
Jane: You’ve set this sketch in a town hall in Richmond.
Tim Brooke-Taylor: Yes?
Jane: Well, there are two towns in Britain called Richmond.
John Cleese: And?
Jane: One of them might complain.
JC: But there’s nothing rude about the town.
Jane: No, but . . . I am concerned.
TBT: OK! Let’s call it ‘Goolie’.
Jane: Thank you!
As for the rest of us, our anxieties were almost entirely script-related and arose because our pattern of rehearsal was as follows:
First day: Read-through. Everything looks fine, so afterwards write for next week’s show.
Second day: Rehearsal. On second thoughts, two sketches feel a bit weak, so the evening is spent rewriting them. One of them now much better.
Third day: Rehearsal. One sketch still not working, so rewrite in evening, but by now we have lost all confidence in it, so start thinking of new sketch to replace it. Eventually think of one. Write it.
Fourth day: Rehearsal. New sketch doesn’t work. We stop rehearsing early so we have extra time to come up with new sketch. We are feeling tired and a bit anxious, and don’t like any of our new ideas as they all seem derivative. Write two new sketches.
Fifth day: Rehearsal. New sketches stink. Panic looms. Depressed as well as tired. Devoid of funny thoughts.
Sixth day: Rehearsal. We borrow a sketch from next week’s script. But it doesn’t feel very funny either and we don’t have time to rehearse it properly.
Seventh day: Bad night’s sleep. Recording in front of LIVE audience. Show goes rather well so suicide pact put on hold and we celebrate instead.
Eighth day: New script doesn’t feel as good as last night’s and we are already a sketch short. Spend evening trying to write but too tired and stressed.
And so on and so on. Panic, anxiety, loss of sense of humour, insomnia, depression, bleeding from ears, migraines, vertigo, loss of appetite, blurred vision, nocturnal enuresis, etc., etc. But . . . no tensions within the team. Just fear the show would be bad.
Writing and performing in these six shows taught me an important creative principle: the more anxious you feel, the less creative you are. Your mind ceases to play and be expansive. Fear causes your thinking to contract, to play safe, and this forces you into stereotypical thinking. And in comedy you must have innovation because an old joke isn’t funny. I therefore came up with Cleese’s Two Rules of Writing Comedy.
First Rule: Get your panic in early. Fear gives you energy, so make sure you have plenty of time to use that energy. (The same rule applies to exams.)
Second Rule: Your thoughts follow your mood. Anxiety produces anxious thoughts; sadness begets sad thoughts; anger, angry thoughts; so aim to be in a relaxed, playful mood when you try to be funny.
We all thought the reaction to the shows would be all right, because the studio audiences liked them, but the response was better than we expected, especially from the TV critics. They were paid a lot of attention in those days (some of them were worth it then) but there was one in particular, Philip Purser of the Telegraph, whose opinion we cared about a lot. So when he wrote a review in which he criticised ITV for not showing the programme nationally (‘If I lived in the Midlands, say, I’d be mutinous by now’) and argued, ‘if it weren’t for Alan Bennett we’d be hailing it as the funniest thing for years’, we were over several astronomical entities, some of them very distant. On the whole, the critics tended to pick me out, while missing Marty. They spotted him in the autumn, though.
Before I develop the narrative further . . . One more favourite sketch! (The cost of which is included in the price of the book, so you can skip it without feeling cheated.)
John Cleese: Come in! Ah, good morning. Come in, thank you. Do sit down. What can I do for you?
Graham Chapman: Well, I’m interested in your memory training programme.
JC: Oh good, well, a lot of people feel that they’d like to improve their memories. The wonderful thing is, improving them is not as hard as, uh, as hard as, uh, nails.
GC: I beg your pardon?
JC: As hard as nails. It’s word association. You see, it’s the basis of my system . . . You remember things by associating with . . . uh . . . with, uh . . . people like that.
GC: People like what?
JC: They like to improve their memory. Now, what can I do for you?
GC: Well, I’m interested in your course.
JC: Good! You remembered that. You see, you have learned to associate your interest in my course with my asking why . . . association of ideas, it’s the basis of everything we do to acquire a better memory. But it’s not as hard as . . .
GC: I think?
JC: No, hard as nails. Remember? Never mind, never mind, you’ll soon pick it up. Now, take a common object like this.
GC: A saucer.
JC: Good! Well done. Now what does it make you think of?
GC: Well, uh . . .
JC: What would you like to think of?
GC: Like to think of?
JC: A nude woman!
GC: A nude woman?
JC: Well done! You’re getting it! What is the nude woman doing?
GC: Drinking tea?
JC: Good! And what’s she drinking tea out of?
GC: A cup?
JC: Quite right! A cup and . . . saucer! It’s a saucer! Are you getting it?
GC: I’m not sure . . .
JC: One of the association ideas is that the basis of our method, indeed, the whole, the whole, hole in the wall – what do I see through the hole in the wall? A nude woman! Every time!
GC: Every time?
JC: Of course! It’s such a strong image, you can’t forget it. You associate that with anything you want to remember, anything – numbers, dates, names, anything – try again.
GC: Battle of Trafalgar?
JC: Ah, Trafalgar, Trafalgar Square, square, hole in the wall, look through the hole in the wall, what do I see?
GC: A nude woman?
JC: Excellent! Excellent! Who is this nude woman?
GC: I don’t know.
JC: The Empress Josephine, 1815. See? Josephine, 1815.
GC: 1815 was Waterloo. Trafalgar was 1805.
JC: Wait a minute, I haven’t finished. Josephine’s wearing boots, Well
ington boots, you can’t see the toes, so deduct the ten you can’t see from 1815, 1805. Simple!
GC: All right, the date of Waterloo.
JC: 1815!
GC: Yes, but how do you do it?
JC: Ah, wait a minute, ah . . . Waterloo, Waterloo Station, train to Brighton, Brighton Pier, peer through the hole in the wall, and there’s the Empress Josephine in the nude, 1815.
GC: But she’s got Wellington boots on.
JC: No, Battle of Waterloo, Duke of Wellington, in he comes, wants his boots back, so he sees her toes, no need to deduct ten, Waterloo 1815. See?
GC: Fire of London?
JC: What?
GC: The date of the Fire of London.
JC: Oh. Let me think, let me think . . . date of the Fire of London . . . Fire, fiery, diary, Samuel Pepys, yes, Pepys wrote in his diary about the Fire of London, Samuel Pepys, peeps through the hole in the wall, what does he see?
GC: A nude woman?
JC: No. Three nude women. By the light of the fire, he sees three stunning, gorgeous nude women, sex, sex, sex, sexteen sexty-sex.
Despite the success of the series, the feeling of responsibility was killing me, and when The 1948 Show was finished, I fell in a heap and lay there for a week. Once I had recovered, Gra and I settled down to start writing the new Frost Reports.
The Chinese have a blessing: May you live in uninteresting times. So I was blessed to be doing this second series with David. For three months there was calm, order, predictability, not a hint of a crisis or anything else ‘interesting’. The show ran smoothly, David was genial, Jimmy charming and well organised, I was less stressed, the writers had all become good pals and the two Ronnies were . . . funny. Just funny, whatever they did. Ronnie C’s timing was still an education for me but I also began to notice Ronnie B’s supreme competence. This sounds like faint praise, but it’s his own fault because he made everything look so easy.
Gra and I wrote a sketch we particularly liked, because it was rather wilder than the Frost norm. Ronnie B played the big part, with Ronnie C ‘feeding’ him.
Adrian Wapcaplet sits in his luxurious advertising agency office. The client, Mr Simpson, enters and Wapcaplet rises to greet him.
Wapcaplet: Ah! Come in, Mr Simpson. Welcome to Follicle, Ampersand, Goosecreature, Eskimo, Sedlitz, Wapcaplet, Looseliver, Vendetta, Wallaby and Spong, London’s leading advertising agency. Do sit down. My name’s Wapcaplet, Adrian Wapcaplet.
Simpson: How do you do.
They both sit.
Wapcaplet: Now, Mr Simpson – I understand you want us to advertise your washing powder?
Simpson: String.
Wapcaplet: String, washing powder – what’s the difference?! We can sell anything.
Simpson: Good. Well, I have this large quantity of string – 112,000 miles of it to be exact – which I inherited. I thought that if I advertised it . . .
Wapcaplet: Of course, a national campaign! Useful stuff, string, no trouble there.
Simpson: Ah, but there’s a snag, you see. Due to bad planning . . . the 112,000 miles is in three-inch lengths.
He gives Wapcaplet a sample three-inch length of string.
Simpson: So it’s not very useful . . .
Wapcaplet: Three-inch lengths, eh? . . . That’s our selling point! Simpson’s Individual Stringettes!
Simpson: . . . What?
Wapcaplet: The ‘Now’ string . . . pre-sliced, easy-to-handle Simpson’s Individual Emperor Stringettes. Just the right length!
Simpson: For what?
Wapcaplet: Er . . . a million household uses!
Simpson: Such as?
Wapcaplet: Tying up very small parcels, attaching notes to pigeons’ legs, destroying household pests . . .
Simpson: Destroying household pests?
Wapcaplet: If they’re bigger than a mouse you can strangle them with the string, and if they’re smaller you can flog ’em to death with it . . . Buy Simpson’s miracle Stringettes today!
Simpson: Miracle? It’s only string!
Wapcaplet: Only string? It’s everything! It’s waterproof!
Simpson: No it isn’t.
Wapcaplet: All right – it’s water-resistant, then.
Simpson: It isn’t.
Wapcaplet: . . . All right! It’s water-absorbent! It’s . . . superabsorbent string. Absorb water today with Simpson’s Individual Water Absorbitex Stringettes. Away with floods!
Simpson: You just said it was waterproof . . .
Wapcaplet: Away with the dull drudgery of workaday tidal waves! Use Simpson’s Individual Space-age Flood Preventers!
Simpson: You’re mad.
Not that zany, I agree, but we were getting there.
With the final Frost Report under our belt, Graham and I spent a few days on the Rimmer script, and then jumped in a limo with Tim and Marty to be driven up to Manchester for an appearance on the big chat show of those days, Dee Time, hosted by Simon Dee. My first television interview, back in the early days of The Frost Report, had been a grim experience, but this time I really enjoyed myself, not least, I fear, because the four of us behaved rather badly.
We had never met Simon before we walked on to his show, which was live, and I’m not sure he quite knew which one of us was which. And he certainly had no idea as to the identity of the fifth member of our group, since this was the guy who’d driven the limo from London and whom we’d decided to invite on with us. Once our driver had sat down he decided to take off his shoes and socks and began eating a sandwich he’d brought with him. Dee was understandably bewildered, but wisely didn’t risk an introduction and the interview proceeded without any clarification. The moment Simon turned away from us to introduce the first commercial break, we hid behind our sofas so effectively that when the poor man turned back from his announcement, he thought we’d left, and a panic ensued.
The reason we were feeling naughty was because we were all just about to go on holiday. Graham was due to spend a month in Mykonos, which slightly surprised us, as it was an island known for its gay lifestyle even in 1967, so it didn’t strike me as being his kind of place. And Tim and I were flying to Brussels the next day, to link up with Alan Hutchison, so that the three of us could travel together down to Italy by car, to take a beach holiday in Elba.
Strangely enough, given that I didn’t have a driving licence, the car we were driving was mine. The success of my television ventures had inspired me to acquire a rather beautiful and expensive old Bentley, which I’d fallen in love with not just because it was decked out in British Racing Green but because it was big: with child-bearing hips, and a big walnut dashboard, and big walnut trays built into the back of the front seats, so that people could sit in the back and have picnics while being driven about in Oxfordshire. I’d started to learn to drive, and in the meantime had acquired a provisional driving licence that allowed me to drive my car along the road, provided I put ‘L’ plates up and had a qualified driver sitting next to me; and I’d also bought a chauffeur’s cap, to confuse people who’d seen the ‘L’ plates.
Once Alan had picked Tim and me up at Brussels airport we began driving south (they wouldn’t allow me behind the wheel), all three of us full of high spirits, playing up the role of young English gentlemen abroad. We wore panama hats, I had on a cricket shirt and a cravat, and as Alan drove the first leg of our journey, Tim and I did a lot of ‘royal’ waving out of the windows, smiling and nodding graciously to the Belgian people, and blessing them. An hour later we retraced our journey. This time all three of us were sitting in the back of the Bentley, and we were still waving and behaving regally, but the car was slanting graciously backwards with the front wheels a couple of feet off the ground, suspended from the rescue truck that was towing us. Alan had put our car under a juggernaut (or, for American readers, a large truck) at a roundabout, while I was reading the map, and Tim in the back was unavailingly crying ‘Priorité à droite! Priorité à droite.’
We left the Bentley and Tim at a garage, a
nd Alan and I travelled back to Brussels to hire a much less magnificent vehicle. When we picked Tim up the next morning, he told us that he’d spent the night in his room with a ‘bird’. Intrigued, we questioned him closely, and learned that he had been woken in the middle of the night by a strange, rather alarming noise and that when he had put the light on he had discovered a turkey vomiting on the mantelpiece. He’d thought of complaining but found that his phrase book did not cover this contingency.
So, in reduced circumstances, the three of us drove down to Pisa airport and collected another bird, called Christine. Tim had met her at the first 1948 Show recording in mid-February and I’m pleased to report they married in 1968.
When I got back from Italy I found a message from Harry Secombe asking if we could meet between shows at the London Palladium, where he was headlining their big summer production, with help from my Frost Report friend Nicky Henson. My God, they worked hard, somehow managing to do three shows each Saturday. Nicky enjoyed the experience of playing the huge Palladium theatre with its packed summertime audience; the only bit he found difficult was the moment the curtain went up at the Saturday matinee, when he was hit by a smell of sweaty armpits from the audience that would have felled a camel. Nicky also told me a typical Secombe story: a few weeks after their show opened, Harry found out what all the dancers were being paid; he immediately insisted the show’s accountants put an extra £5 in each dancer’s wage packet, and deduct it from his own salary. There were a lot of dancers, and they never knew.
It’s unusual to meet a man who is truly loveable, but Harry was one of those men, and that is probably why I felt so angry for him during our first meeting in his dressing room. (I’d arrived after the matinee and still remember an autograph hunter at the stagedoor asking me, ‘Are you anybody?’ I was tempted to answer him ontologically, but instead told him a white lie, and denied my own existence.) When Harry greeted me, he immediately presented me with a beautiful coffee-table book – a copy of J. B. Priestley’s Man and Time. He’d remembered our conversation in Barbados! He then asked me if I would write some sketches for him to perform in a big TV special he had planned and I was genuinely thrilled. We chatted about ideas, and then his agent, Jimmy Grafton, arrived and handed Harry a script he had written for him – a big set-piece to end another show. Harry started to read it and I made some notes of the sketch ideas we’d just come up with. However, I slowly became aware that Harry was looking very worried by what he was reading. He clearly thought it wasn’t funny, but being so good-natured he was terribly uncomfortable about making any sort of critical comment to Jimmy, who by now was immersed in a conversation with someone else. Eventually Harry cleared his throat a couple of times and said, ‘I think this still . . . needs a little work, Jimmy.’