The first house was just over half-full and was happy, rather than ecstatic. But it certainly couldn’t be compared with the reception we’d had at Coventry. Perhaps most amazingly of all, ‘Silly Walks’ went by with an almost embarrassing lack of response, and there were many cases of mikes not being switched up, etc, etc. There was only half an hour before the next house, so there was only time for a cup of tea and a sandwich before we gathered on stage for ‘Llamas’. John, Eric, Terry G, Terry J and Neil resplendent in their Spanish gear, Carol in her sequinned leotard, and me in an old mac with ‘Eat More Pork’ written on the back, and my Gumby gear underneath.
As soon as the curtain went up for the second house, the atmosphere was one of wild enthusiasm. Favourite characters – John in the Llama sketch, Gumby, Terry and Graham as Pepperpots, Eric as Nudge-Nudge, and Graham’s Colonel and Ken Shabby – were given rounds of applause, and ‘Pet Shop’ at the end was as self-indulgent in performance, and as hugely popular in reception as it has ever been.
But Graham was far gone. He had missed his entrance in ‘Argument’ twice, made ‘Custard Pie’ a dull shadow of its former self, and slowed down many a sketch. Only his own ‘Wrestling’ had been done really well.
Upstairs in the restaurant of the Dolphin, Graham and Eric reached a point of explosion and Eric threw down his napkin with a rather impetuous flourish and left the restaurant. Later Graham, Eric and John had ‘full and frank discussions’, in which John told Graham straight out that he had performed very badly in both shows and if he went on like this every night there was no point in him continuing on the tour. For my own part, I feel that Graham’s condition was the result of a colossal over-compensation for first-night nerves. He had clearly gone too far in his attempt to relax – maybe now the first night is over he will no longer feel as afraid.
Saturday, April 28th, Brighton
At 10.00 we left Southampton and moved along the south coast to Brighton.
The first house was not brilliant – there were severe sound problems, late cues and sketches which went on too long.
The second house was better, with a big audience response, but again difficulties with sound and film. Helen was there to see it, so was Maggie,1 Barry Cryer, Ronnie Corbett, etc. Very few congratulations flying around – a sort of tacit approval at best, at worst a positive awkwardness. As I waited outside the theatre after the show, waiting for John G to sort out which cars should take us home, I felt very depressed. I feel that my contribution to the show is not as great as it could be. I feel that we are marking time – regurgitating old material, milking the public in a way Python never has done quite as blatantly. But as Helen, and Carol’s hubby Peter, who travelled back with us, said, the audience loved it, and with a few changes it has the makings of a great show. We have already made some cuts – ‘Half-a-Bee’ song didn’t even last two performances – but there are others.
Saturday, May 3th, Birmingham
The tour is now in its second week, and we have done eleven shows already. My voice is getting a little husky and I hope that if I treat it carefully it will last tonight’s show at the Hippodrome and three shows in Bristol before two days off in London. And I am, almost as I write, 30 years old. Thirty years old in this Post House, a colourful, but colourless hotel, which could be anywhere in any country. Thirty years old and enjoying all the benefits of standardisation.
Most of the people who stay in these places are businessmen, and that’s what I feel is the difference between my being 30 in Birmingham and 20 at Brasenose, and ten at Birkdale2 – now, for better or worse, I am a part of this standardisation – a money-earning, rate-paying, mortgage-owning man of business. For Python is business – it’s no longer an unpredictable, up one year, down the next kind of existence. Python has the magic ingredient, ‘market potential’, and our books and our records are only on the verge of making as much money as we could want. And yet some of the spontaneity and the excitement has gone as security has crept in and, although I am in a job which still allows me to wear knotted handkerchiefs over my head and have 2,500 people pay to see me do it, I still feel that I am a 30-year-old businessman.
The show went well, tho’ my lack of voice is becoming a slight and annoying restriction. At the end of’Pet Shop’ I did the usual 15-second approach to John and, feeling the end of the show only thankful seconds away, said ‘D’you want to come back to my place?’ Conscious of the laugh being less ecstatic than when my voice was working. But worse was to come. John turned to me and said ‘No’. It didn’t get much reaction and a combination of disappointment at this rather poor ad-lib and consuming fatigue made me just remain silent, look suitably disappointed and wait for the curtains to close. I really was in no mood for witty extemporisation. But I suddenly became aware that Eric, in a compere’s spangly jacket, had come forward to the front of the stage and was talking to the audience. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this evening is a very special evening for one of us here tonight …’ then it became clear … ‘for tonight Michael Palin is 30 years old.’The audience cheered, my mind started racing as I began to go through my options … Eric was going on … ‘And tonight we’ve brought along one of Michael’s very great friends …’ faces of John and Terry looking at me grinning … ‘one of his most favourite personalities in the world of showbiz … Mrs Mary Whitehouse!’ Neil plays a few chords, and on comes Eric’s mother – the spitting image of the good Mrs Whitehouse,1 bearing a cake with candles. Everyone is looking at me, grins have become grins of anticipation – what will I do? How will I react? Carol Cleveland brought me a bunch of chrysanthemums – and there was the get-out. I found myself saying ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to say how pleased and proud I am to have received this cake from that great shit Mary Whitehouse (cheap, but desperate and it got a good laugh) and all I can say at this moving moment is … (relapse into Gumby voice) … ARRANGE THEM … IN THE CAKE!’And plunge the lovely chrysanthemums into the lovely cake.
I had got out of it, and the audience were clapping and laughing and singing ‘Happy Birthday’. I felt not only relief, but great pleasure and thanks that my birthday had actually been made remarkable – as I said to Eric, ‘At last there’s something to write in my diary.’
I had organised a birthday meal for everyone at Lorenzo’s, an Italian restaurant. Food passable, wine and champagne. Sat next to Robert [Hewison], who ten years ago almost single-handedly pushed me into revue performing.
Back at the hotel I remember Neil helping me to my room, where I stripped off and collapsed into bed. Neil, Terry, Eric, Carol and I can’t remember who else crowded into the room. We read poems from the Oxford Book of Twentieth Century Verse. Neil insisted on spilling wine over my carpet. The last I remember is Neil offering me a joint, which I declined – for my system had had a big enough battering for one day. An enormous card had arrived from André and Dave, someone was eating my chocolates and, about 3.30, my thirtieth birthday ended, and I lay back, utterly exhausted and very, very happy. Thank you Birmingham.
Sunday, May 6th, Bristol
Left for Bristol at midday with our driver, Bill; Eric and John in the other limousine with Sid driving.
As we drove out of Birmingham, we ran into a violent cloudburst on the motorway out of the Midlands. Bill confided to us that he was staying behind Sid because Sid’s car wasn’t working too well and the brakes were in a very dangerous state. Nevertheless, we were having some trouble keeping up with him. I looked at the clock. We were touching 100. In front Sid was swaying his limousine around like a raft in a storm. I buried my head in Evelyn Waugh’s diaries in The Observer, or else tried to sleep. I felt doubly glad I was with Bill – but uncomfortably aware that the window was misting over, and yet Bill was blaming the poor visibility on the intensity of the rain. Terry J, behind, suggested he use the demister. Bill didn’t know where it was, and Terry and I had to show him.
When we reached Bristol we had to stop and ask some passers-by where the Dragonara Hotel was. Shortly, as w
e approached a roundabout, there was this brand new brick pile with a huge sign, ‘Dragonara’, crowning it. I could scarcely believe my eyes as Sid turned into the roundabout and, inches from the sign itself, sped away and off to the left, up a hill and out towards the docks. Bill, after turning on the dual carriageway, drove past both entrances of the hotel and off to the roundabout to follow Sid.
Thursday, May 17th, Edinburgh
One of the most vocal and enthusiastic audiences we’ve had. The usual knot of twenty or thirty autograph hunters outside, and one of them asked me to come and have a coffee and a drink with them. Foolishly I indicated our fat Daimler, and muttered something about the Queen Mother waiting; but then had to sit in the car for a full 15 minutes for John to finish signing. A couple of belligerent Scots looked resentfully at the car, and I thought we were going to have a repetition of Birmingham, where someone spat on the windscreen. Even when we eventually left, Sid took us steadfastly the wrong way. I have never been on a journey with him when he has gone directly from point A to point B. We drove out along the road to Peebles tonight – and we made the mistake of thinking that it was so clearly not the right road that Sid must be at any moment about to turn off. But it was not until I shouted to him ‘Is this the Glasgow road, Sid?’ that he took action and we veered off to the right. We were now in the middle of a housing estate, with our enormous limousine squeezing its way into a cul-de-sac, some ten miles from our hotel.
The consistency with which Sid goes wrong is such that, as Neil said, the law of averages ceases to apply.
Friday, May 18th, Edinburgh
Neil and Eric very pissed tonight on stage. The unusual spectacle of Eric not quite in control. The difference in his timing showed how crucial timing is. Both his long travel agent monologue and ‘Nudge-Nudge’, which usually provoke enormous reaction, went by almost unnoticed. Neil was falling about behind stage, in high spirits, and his ‘Idiot Song’ was wonderfully bad – full of wrong notes. A show to remember, but not necessarily for the right reasons.
Saturday, May 19th, Edinburgh
Did not enjoy the first house particularly. They were not a very voluble audience, and I was anxious about my voice as usual.
The second house much noisier, and managed to get through it – with the voice standing up surprisingly well. Back at the hotel, tired and hungry, to be confronted with ‘night service’. Could we have a bottle of champagne, please? Much conferring with manager and his lackeys – then a very smartly dressed young man came to tell us that we could only have drinks available in the ‘night store’ – this included a selection of dishes limited in quality and quantity, as only the British know how. Of the six items available, four were not available. I ended up with a gin and tonic, a large brandy and a roll and cheese.
Went to bed. Could not get to sleep owing to presence of David Bowie and his acolytes in the hotel. Bowie is currently the hottest touring property in Britain, having recently played to 18,000 in Earl’s Court. Tonight Bowie was in Edinburgh – and staying about a couple of doors down on the same floor as myself. They weren’t exactly noisy, there were just so many of them. From 2.00 to 3.00 and beyond it was like trying to sleep through the invasion of Poland.
Sunday, May 20th, Edinburgh
At 12.00 sauntered down to the lobby – which was filled with the Bowie party’s gear, and Bowie attendants. What a relief from roomfuls of grey suits – this morning it was almost as though squatters had moved in. Tall, gangling men in worn denim moved through the throng like a dozen Jesuses, sharply dressed chicks sat around smoking – everyone wore a relaxed air of confidence – they were, after all, part of the hottest road show in Britain. With our Sunday papers and our conspicuous lack of hangers-on we looked very dull and anonymous.
Outside the hotel was Bowie’s splendid personal conveyance, a chunky black and white Dodge Van, which looked like nothing I had ever seen – it was an armoured car, in effect – with thick steel sides and black windows. A stylish version of a Black Maria.
The second house at Glasgow earlier in the day, was, I think, the best performance of the tour so far.
Even the police had come in to watch us. Five or six of them, including two policewomen, sat behind stage and watched the second show, and one of them came on and jumped around during the Idiotting sequence. They managed to find a bottle of whisky for Graham from nowhere.1 In fact, as they left, they asked us if we wanted ‘anything else’.
Monday, May 21st, Leeds
Two more full houses and great enthusiasm again.
Back at the hotel a strange little group was gathered in the lobby, in the middle of which was David Hemmings, a sort of sub-Frostian whizz-kid, who made a whole lot of films after Blow-up and became Hollywood material. Also he built up a business called Hemdale, which I suspect is now linked with Frost in some way, who is of course now linked with Slater-Walker, who have just joined with Hambros Bank, and who, as Private Eye put it this week, are soon to make a bid for England.
Anyway, David Hemmings was heavily drunk, and Graham Chapman, also heavily drunk, was having quite a verbal battle with our Dave. Graham was lurching about telling Hemmings that he wasn’t going to go to bed with him. Around Hemmings were various ladies and battered-looking men, who, it turned out, were all from Yorkshire TV. A feeling of confrontation and combat in the air. As of rival gangs circling each other. Python sitting rather aloof, Hemmings being loud and organising little trials of strength – like picking matchboxes off the floor with your teeth, whilst leaning over an armchair. Eventually the gangs came together, and Hemmings got us involved in a game of American football; he tried one run with the cushion we were using as a ball, and crashed down over a whole tableful of drinks – broken glass every-where – and it was only after this that the night porter, a man of extreme tolerance, came and cooled things down. Whilst the others were deciding whether to carry on the game outside, I went to bed. It must have been 3.30. Outside a good Yorkshire mist was closing in.
Wednesday, May 23rd
After Leeds a long run down to Norwich, which was our thirty-fourth performance since we started at the Gaumont, Southampton, twenty-seven days before. My parents came to see the show. It was good to see my father there. I didn’t think he was up to going to the theatre, but it was his own decision.
The first Python stage appearances abroad were on an eccentric tour of Canada. All the team were there, augmented by Neil Innes and Carol Cleveland.
Sunday, June 3rd, Toronto
In Toronto, a small crowd, maybe 150 in all, were waiting outside the customs and, as we came out of the customs hall, there was quite a lot of cheering and shouting. (Apparently our TV show had been out the night before and CBC had added an announcement that we would be at the airport at 6.00.) They were a cheerful rather than a violent crowd. Signed a few autographs and climbed on to an old British bus with an open upper deck, which had been provided for us. CBC had also provided a four-page illustrated news-sheet called ‘The Flying Python’ and were wearing Gumby T-shirts. There was a lot of effort involved, but somehow the welcome seemed anti-climactic – the fans were not quite vociferous enough, and there was a lot of time spent sitting on top of the bus feeling rather conspicuously spare, before we moved off.
The trip into Toronto was soon cut short when a policeman flagged down the bus and turned us off the motorway for travelling too slowly.
This morning I woke at about 4.30 with a feeling of complete disorientation – it took me some moments to remember that I was in a hotel room, and it was quite a shock to remember that the hotel room was in Toronto. A heavy wave of homesickness came over me – the room was colourless and unfriendly, the hotel was massive and impersonal, and I was going to be away from home in rooms like this for the next three weeks. I switched on TV. In a chintzy set with potted palms, a very well made-up, expensively gowned, 35-40-year-old actress was talking to Kathryn Kuhlman, a frizzy-haired, rather wild looking mother/confessor figure. The actress was telling of how she gave
up her life of sleeping pills, and came to know Christ. At moments she tried to cry, but couldn’t – it was a grotesque, but quite compulsive exercise in hard-core bad taste. As Kathryn Kuhlman turned to camera to make her final message on God’s behalf, piped music soared in, and, as the credits rolled over this programme that had been about giving all up to join Christ, I caught the title ‘Miss Kuhlman’s gowns by Profil du Monde’. An extraordinary programme – a kind of coffee-table Christianity.
Tuesday, June 3th, Toronto
I switched on the Watergate hearings – and here was instant courtroom drama – the characters seemed to be characters I’d seen before – the Edmund O’Brien figure of Sam Ervin, the chairman, the film star smoothness of Senator Howard Baker, and the star today – Sally Harmony – a somewhat overawed, but quite pretty divorcee, who was trying to explain away her involvement in the bugging. The whole Watergate case has taken up more press and broadcasting time than any other cause célèbre I can remember. The Americans watch it with fascination and they are given all the hearings all day on three channels. There are signs that the coverage is beginning to slacken, however. I think the initial shocks have all been absorbed by now, and unless Nixon is found to be directly involved in the bugging or cover-up of Watergate, the story will not pick up its impetus of two or three weeks ago.
Meanwhile there was Sally Harmony, sweating lightly on her upper lip, being cross-questioned in front of millions. It’s so like fiction that there could be a danger that it will become fiction in people’s minds.
Wednesday, June 6th, Toronto
After about five hours’ sleep last night, I was called at 6.30 to go for an early show interview with CTV – the main alternative channel to CBC. Terry J and Terry G were the only other two whom Tony [Smith] could persuade to do it, and the four of us left the Royal York Hotel at 7.00 in a cab. It was a grey morning, our route took us out of the city centre, and along an expressway with huge apartment blocks on either side. Enormous numbers of new apartments must have been built in the last ten years, and it was all residential – I could see no factories, or even shops, just acres of instant neighbourhoods.
Diaries 1969–1979 The Python Years Page 17