So, Anyway...

by John Cleese

  Our new flat was superbly located, two minutes’ walk from Knightsbridge tube station, and a fifteen-minute taxi ride from almost everywhere we wanted to go. Gradually we settled into married life, and I introduced Connie to my friends, and they all took to her immediately. She, however, found one thing about them rather puzzling. She kept it to herself until one evening, when we were returning from a dinner party, she asked me why, although they were perfectly at ease answering her questions about them, they never asked her any questions about herself. It took me a while to figure this out. Then I had an epiphany. The reason was that the English middle class was so terrified of embarrassment that they never dared to ask a question about something unless they were absolutely certain that they were not prying into areas which might cause emotional distress. My friends knew nothing about Connie, and felt therefore that they had to be careful what they said just in case it turned out that her father had been eaten by wild pigs, or that her mother was a Jehovah’s Witness, or that her brother thought he was the Duke of York, or that she herself had attended a Nazi Confectionery College, or had just started an affair with my uncle. The middle-class mind was endlessly creative when imagining potential pitfalls. So I explained to Connie that she needed to send a green light by, for example, talking about her father in a relaxed manner for a few seconds; then, I said, the queries about him would start flooding in. But what struck me as so odd was that I had been acting on this understanding all my life without ever having brought it to consciousness. As the French (and the Paraguayans) say, ‘A fish does not know the water that it swims in.’ And eighteen years later, when I was writing A Fish Called Wanda, I used this realisation, when Archie is trying to explain to Wanda the social straitjacket from which he is desperate to escape:

  Wanda, do you have any idea what it’s like being English? Being so correct all the time, being so stifled by this dread of, of doing the wrong thing, of saying to someone, ‘Are you married?’ and hearing, ‘My wife left me this morning’, or saying, ‘Do you have children?’ and being told they all burned to death on Wednesday. You see, Wanda, we’re all terrified of embarrassment. That’s why we’re so . . . dead. Most of my friends are dead, you know; we have these piles of corpses to dinner.

  So Connie spent time trying to get to grips with English ways, learning to navigate London, going to auditions, practising an English accent, and cooking me delicious dinners while listening as I read out what Graham Chapman and I had written earlier in the day.

  I’d linked up again with Graham once I’d got back to London and we were immediately contacted by the producer of Marty Feldman’s new TV show. Marty had attracted a great deal of attention in the television world during the second series of At Last the 1948 Show, and had now been offered his own series by the BBC. In retrospect it surprises me that I cannot remember experiencing any feelings of envy or competitiveness at his rapid promotion: perhaps it was because I’d done so many programmes in the previous year and a half, and wanted a break from all that stress and responsibility; perhaps it was because, as Marty seemed so much older than I was, I didn’t feel competitive in the way we usually do with our contemporaries; perhaps it was because I totally understood why Marty wanted a show over which he had overall artistic control, and felt that I, too, could probably get one when I was up for it; or perhaps it was because Marty’s producer, Dennis Main Wilson, now craved an audience with Graham and me, and, taking the art of flattery to unprecedented heights (or depths), cajoled and beseeched us to write for the show, which without our material, he assured us, was certainly doomed to failure (this was Dennis’s standard MO).

  Sometimes I find that taking a break from writing makes me more fecund once I return to it; and now Graham and I wrote Marty thirty minutes of material in record time, which was received ecstatically (how else?) by Dennis Main Wilson. Our package included what we thought was an outstandingly funny skit with Marty, as a disorderly Archbishop of Canterbury, badgering passengers in a railway carriage. Graham and I attended the first recording of the show, and it was a great success, due in part to some spectacular film sequences. Marty’s cast included Tim Brooke-Taylor, and a very suave former schoolteacher called John Junkin, who played the Cleese-type cold-blooded authoritarian swine roles.

  Meanwhile, I had a meeting with David Frost, who seemed to have become my patron, guide and chief employer. And at one stroke he removed all the financial anxieties that normally accompany a freelancer’s life. I explained to him that I hoped to spend most of the year writing, rather than in TV studios, because I did not want to leave Connie alone for long periods until she had found her London feet, and I knew that this would suit Graham well because he had decided to take a break from his medical studies, so that he could get enough money together to pay his previous year’s tax bill. David then asked me how much I thought I needed to earn, and I rather cheekily suggested £10,000, a sum that I reckoned would be more than sufficient to allow Connie and me to trot along very comfortably. David’s response to this was to commission two programmes on the spot. The first was a film idea Graham and I had cooked up about a detective agency that would feature Ronnie Barker, Ronnie Corbett, Marty, Tim, Graham and me. The other, which was David’s suggestion and which I jumped at when he said he was happy for Connie to perform in it, was to be a special for American TV.

  With my finances now secure for the next year, Graham and I settled down to write. We decided to focus on the special first, and soon came up with a title we liked: How to Irritate People. We swiftly established that, because of his Marty commitments, Tim was not going to be available, so Graham and I gravitated instead towards using Michael Palin (for reasons I can’t recall: certainly neither of us had ever acted with him before). He accepted our invitation and then provided the story for one of the first pieces we wrote, about a garage owner who had sold him a car, and who had a wonderfully evasive way of dealing with the numerous complaints Michael made about it. This Mr Gibbons (odd that the maiden name of Helen Palin, Michael’s wife, was Gibbins) assured Michael that the reason the gearbox was a ‘bit sticky’ was because the car was new, and he explained that the ‘bit sticky’ gearbox was in fact characteristic of a high-quality car (for the first 2,000 miles) – indeed, one of the sure-fire ways to tell that you had not been sold a ‘lemon’. When Michael later had trouble with the brakes, Mr Gibbons told him that this was, again, because the car was new, but that if he had any brake problems he should bring the car in. Michael pointed out that he was having such problems, which was why he had brought the car in, to which Mr Gibbons retorted, ‘Well, if you have any further problems, Mr Palin, you be sure and bring it in.’ Graham and I adored this man’s cast of mind: it reminded us of Lloyd George’s observation of the Irish Republican Eamon de Valera that arguing with him was ‘like trying to pick up mercury with a fork’. We wrote a concise sketch around Mr Gibbons, which we had to film as it involved car doors falling off on cue. The occasion of that filming was the first time that Graham and Michael performed together.

  It’s well known among Python fans that this piece was later rewritten as the ‘Dead Parrot’ sketch. What happened was this: How to Irritate People was never intended to be transmitted in the UK. So when Monty Python started, and I happened upon a copy of the script in a bottom drawer, Graham and I decided that something should be made of it, both because no one in Britain had seen it, and because we still loved the Gibbons character. We also felt, though, that having him as a car salesman was very clichéd. So we rummaged among other possible locations for him, and up popped a pet shop. Obviously someone had bought a pet and there was something badly wrong with it – it was dead! What animal, then? A cat? No, dead kitties are not funny. A mouse? Wouldn’t work: too small, and too vulnerable. Something big? A dog? Could work, but people are fond of dogs. Imagine banging a dead dog against a counter to wake it up – you could get lynched. A parrot . . . ? Yes! Nobody’s going to get upset about the death of a cartoon creature like a parrot – except, perhaps
, its owner; the rest of us couldn’t give a monkey’s . . .

  So out came Roget’s Thesaurus (which should have had a co-writer’s credit on several of our sketches) and we were away. Except that when we’d finished, it didn’t quite work. Why? Something wasn’t right with the pet-shop owner’s responses: the balance between his evasions and his outright lies didn’t build properly, so it wasn’t convincing. We had to rewrite his lines twice more before we were happy with them. Strange to recall, when Michael and I performed the sketch in front of the Monty Python studio audience in 1969 the reaction was quite subdued. I believe about five years elapsed before it mysteriously morphed into a ‘classic’. I suspect it was performing the ‘Dead Parrot’ on stage at Drury Lane in 1974 that somehow started its elevation to iconic status.

  Where was I? Oh yes, writing How to Irritate People . . . it’s funny how I drifted off that subject. Possibly because, to be quite honest, it was not a good experience. Or, to be completely honest, it was a dreadful experience. But not when we were writing it. For in the early stages of its gestation Graham and I revelled in the freedom of being in charge of a script for the first time.

  We particularly enjoyed writing a sketch based on our favourite Indian restaurant, the Naraine, just off the Earls Court Road. The owner, Bill Naraine, had taken to greeting the two of us in an absurdly grandiloquent manner: Graham was always ‘the Good Doctor’, while he insisted on addressing me as ‘My Lord’. He combined this extravagant fawning with self-abasement, apologising for his humble establishment and the ineptitude of his staff and the inadequacy of his chef, lamenting some imaginary problem with our last meal and promising to redouble his efforts on this visit, while ushering us to our table with flamboyant gestures and cries of delight. Had we asked him to carry us to our chairs he would have obliged instantly. When our triumphal procession finally reached the table, we would manage to seat ourselves despite his frenzied assistance and laudatory exclamations, at which point he would suddenly discover a grain of salt on the tablecloth, emit a roar of fury and despair at this latest assault on his guests’ sensibilities, launch elaborate but savage denunciations at the waiters cowering around us, encomiums of praise for the Good Doctor’s and My Lord’s gracious forbearance, heart-rending prayers for our forgiveness, and bloodthirsty threats of vengeance against one poor waiter who was now scuttling, terrified, towards the kitchen, bearing the offending molecule of salt. Then there would be just a moment’s pause in this extraordinary hullabaloo as he gathered himself for yet another outburst of frantic toadying, only to realise that he had forgotten to give us the menus. The consequent howl of despair would have frightened a banshee, and the waiters had to restrain Bill as he tried to commit suicide by beating himself about the head with the drinks trolley. (Perhaps I am exaggerating a little – though only towards the end.)

  Graham and I were initially embarrassed by Bill’s displays, but after a time we agreed to enjoy and indeed encourage them, to the extent that one evening, as we made our way to our table, Bill so surpassed himself in his outrageous fawning that half the restaurant stood up in acknowledgement of our apparent aristocratic status. As we wrote the sketch we felt that we were creating only a pale shadow of the original.

  Diner (Graham Chapman): Would you recommend the madras chicken curry?

  Bill (Michael Palin): Oh, yes, it is wonderful. For you it will be mmmmm!

  Diner: Ah, is that hot?

  Bill: Yes, yes, very hot.

  Diner: Ah, I don’t want it too hot.

  Bill: No, no, not hot at all, it’s extremely cool.

  Diner: Only I want it medium.

  Bill: Oh, medium, that’s what it is. Very, very, extremely medium! Medium beyond belief! (He kneels beside diner’s chair) What a thing I told you that it was hot! Your Grace, let me wash your feet.

  Diner: No, thank you.

  Bill: Let me lick them, then!

  Later, a spot of dust is discovered on a chair. Bill lets out a cry of total despair and orders the waiter to burn the chair immediately.

  I suspect that nowadays Michael’s portrayal of dear Bill would not be allowed. It’s OK to portray Germans as militaristic, the French as snotty, the Italians as histrionic, the English as uptight and asexual, the Swedes as depressed or the Swiss as money-grabbing, but political correctness deems some nations too vulnerable to tease, an attitude which strikes me as rather condescending. Perhaps when there are a few more Asian billionaires, Indians too will be regarded as permissible comedy fodder. (Incidentally, Bill’s food was the best we ever found – and there was no charge for the cabaret.)

  The one and only sketch Graham and I wrote for the show that, judging from internet viewings, has stood the test of time concerns two airline pilots who become so bored on a long-haul flight that they decide to amuse themselves by making ambiguous announcements to frighten their passengers:

  Captain (John Cleese): (over intercom) ‘Hello, this is your captain speaking. There is absolutely no cause for alarm.’ (to First Officer) That will get them thinking. (First Officer reaches for the microphone) No, no, no, no. Not yet, not yet. Let it sink in. They’re thinking, ‘Er, what is there absolutely no cause for alarm about? Are the wings on fire?’ (over intercom) ‘The wings are not on fire.’ Now they are thinking, ‘Er, why should he say that?’ So we say . . .

  Steward enters the cockpit.

  First Officer (Graham Chapman): Oh, how are we doing?

  Steward (Michael Palin): (looks down the aisle) They’ve stopped eating; looking a bit worried.

  Captain: Good.

  Steward: Hang on, one of them is going to the washroom.

  Captain: Is he there yet?

  Steward: He’s just closing the door . . . NOW!

  Captain: Right. One . . . two . . . three . . .

  First Officer: (over intercom) ‘Please return to your seats and fasten your safety belts immediately please.’

  In a couple of cases Graham and I opted to reuse sketches from The 1948 Show: one a game-show spoof, with me as a heartless host called Nosmo Claphanger haranguing an old crone; the other a send-up of a current affairs interview about freedom of speech, where the interviewer never stops talking, so that the interviewee, unable to get a word in edgeways, goes berserk.

  When I watched the whole show on DVD recently I was startled to find that the performance Graham and I gave of ‘Freedom of Speech’ was far weaker than the one Marty and I had done the year before. I was also surprised by the naturalistic style of the whole programme: much closer to The Frost Report, I felt, than to The 1948 Show, and without a trace of anything Pythonesque. Considering the artistic control that we had, this may seem very odd, but I suspect it was simply the result of having the theme of ‘irritation’ from the start, which encouraged us to remember what irritated us in ordinary life rather than to indulge in wilder flights of fancy.

  In addition to the sketches Graham and I wrote for the show, Connie helped me with a couple, the first time we had ever worked together. One of them drew on her amusement at the way in which the English upper class avoided the pronoun ‘I’, as though there were something vulgar about using it. I’d already noticed that using ‘one’ instead of ‘I’ seemed to convey a sense of magisterial detachment and imply that any person not in total agreement with one’s personal view must be dreadfully common. I therefore wrote a sketch in which a young upper-class couple on a date achieve the highest degree of verbal intimacy considered permissible by their class:

  A fashionable Knightsbridge restaurant. At a romantically lit table sit an upper-class pair, Simon and Fiona, deep in conversation. Simon takes Fiona’s hand tenderly.

  Simon: When one’s with one, darling . . . one feels one’s . . . one.

  Fiona: One won what?

  Simon: No. One’s at one . . .

  Fiona: Oh! At one with oneself.

  Simon: No, at one with . . . one.

  Fiona smiles.

  Fiona: One so agrees.

  Simon looks deeply i
nto Fiona’s eyes.

  Simon: . . . One loves one, darling.

  Fiona: One loves one, too.

  She kisses his hand.

  Simon: . . . Where was one, darling?

  Fiona: One was saying one’s wife didn’t understand one . . .

  Apart from the naturalistic, distinctly non-Pythonesque tone of How to Irritate People, there were other surprises for me as I watched the show for the first time in many years. I had no idea, for example, that I would discover another nascent Python sketch, this time in a far more recognisable form than the ‘Dead Parrot’ – the ‘Job Interview’, which appeared, slightly rewritten, in the fifth show of the first Python series, as an interview for a place on a management training course. Then I was astonished to find some proto-Python Pepperpots! These were Graham’s creation: women who hooted and squawked and made pensive chicken-like noises, and in Python tended to discuss Jean-Paul Sartre or Mrs William Pitt the Elder or the provenance of escaped penguins perched on their TV sets. He called them ‘Pepperpots’ because he felt that their shape resembled that of the cheap pepperpots to be found in works canteens. In How to Irritate People we had them talking during a film – not very funny at all.

  But the biggest surprise of all – in fact it was a shock – was to realise just how poor the show was. And then I remembered in ghastly detail the truly horrendous day we recorded it. Up to that moment there had been no sign of danger: we thought the script was pretty good, and Michael Palin remembers the read-through, on the first day of rehearsal, as being a bit of a riot. But from the instant we arrived in the studio that morning, everything went wrong. There were endless technical problems, which put the crew under such pressure that they never laughed at any of the sketches, and we therefore found ourselves rehearsing to total silence – never an encouraging experience, especially when you’re performing new material. Worse, we got only halfway through the dress rehearsal before time ran out and the audience started arriving. Things didn’t improve when the warm-up man went on stage: he failed to get a titter out of the audience; and when I went out to thank them for coming to the recording I was struck by their resemblance to the people in Weston on the day George VI died. My solar plexus tightened; I could feel the cold sweat coming. Then we started recording the show, and it was quieter even than a matinee I had once experienced in Dunedin – at least there they had had teacups to rattle. And now it really began to go downhill. Within five minutes none of the sketches felt funny, and this spells D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R for a performer. You just can’t sense how to make the material funny, because it has suddenly become clear to you that it isn’t . . .