Diaries 1969–1979 The Python Years

by Palin, Michael

  Friday, September 23rd

  Squash with Terry Jones at five. Beaten again, I’m afraid. Then up to the Flask for a drink. Tell Terry J that I shall be writing the novel (hereinafter called ‘the work’) until Christmas. He doesn’t sound disappointed. Says that it will suit him, as he has further work to do on Chaucer, now his book has found a publisher. He’s just finished a translation of’The Prologue’, which TJ says he’s more excited about than the book.

  Off to Abbotsley tomorrow for a quick burst of countryside, then back to London and the novel on Monday. A strange feeling – not knowing quite what will come out. I keep wanting to start – waking up in bed and composing cracking first six lines, then controlling myself.

  Will I be able to keep the diary up? Will I choke on a surfeit of writing? Will the malfunctioning, non-reversing ribbon on my typewriter cut short a promising career? Watch these spaces …

  Monday, September 26th

  After writing a few letters between eight and breakfast time, I started on the work at 9.30.

  The omens were good. The sun was shining, God was in his heaven and all was well. Slogged through ten lines – without an idea in my head, but used an opening I had thought of a week ago. A man wakes up in a strange room, a strange bed, almost in limbo, and has to reconstruct his life from there.

  Over to Shepherd’s Bush for the showing of three Ripping Yarns to an audience. John Jarvis in a panic in his editing rooms because tomorrow’s showprint of’Olthwaite’ has arrived scratched in one place. He’s spent the afternoon redubbing ‘Claw’ because he felt the early lightning flashes weren’t right. Such dedication.

  A full house – over 300 people tonight – and a good and warm and responsive audience. I suppose that the Radio Times publicity and the start of the series last week has helped. All three films go well – I watch them much more easily than the last two – but ‘Curse of the Claw’ goes best of all and seems by all accounts a winner.

  Tuesday, September 27th

  As I was leaving home, a black Rover drove slowly up Oak Village. Inside was the Lord President of the Council of Great Britain – Michael Foot – and a doubtless well-meaning, but obviously harassed lady driver who was lost.1 Foot had put down his Guardian and was looking around in some bewilderment. Their progress up Elaine Grove was brought to a smart halt by our neighbour Philip Clough doing a three-point turn in front of them.

  Late as I was, I had to run back in and tell Helen there was a Cabinet Minister stuck in our street.

  At the Beeb, watched ‘Olthwaite’ with Terry J, who arrived hotfoot and with a hangover. The laughter/no laughter debate began again as we were dubbing, but I tend now very strongly towards using it, so does Jimmy G. We compromised by dubbing it carefully – no words were lost, any titters or coughs were expunged and we only used it lavishly in scenes where it came lavishly.

  There is an extraordinary feeling of optimism in the Beeb over the Ripping Yarns – despite the fact that no new ones have gone out. The top brass simply love them, and silvery-haired Mr Scott the Controller2 came up and shook my hand and said how much he’d enjoyed ‘Tomkinson’ the second time.

  Back home. Watch ‘Olthwaite’ with Robert H, Helen and the boys. All enjoy it unreservedly. I must say I felt chuffed as I watched it. It’s so rich – almost too rich for telly – you have to concentrate on it hard or you miss lines, characters, beautiful shots. Whatever the press say, I feel that of all the things I’ve ever done, I find ‘Olthwaite’ and ‘Claw’ the most satisfying.

  Friday, September 30th

  At Darsham by 11.30. Am cutting back a profuse cotoneaster hedge when an 1100 eases its way into the drive before the garage, bearing Joyce Ashmore, a cousin of my father’s, and holder of many of the family records.

  A very capable lady with a brisk and confident well-bred manner. She has a rather heavy jaw, but seems exceedingly well and lively. She is down to earth and unsentimental about the family, but interested in and interesting about stories of the Palins.

  Discover for the first time the full story of my great-grandfather, Edward Palin, who married Brita Gallagher. Evidently Brita was an orphan of the Irish potato famine of the 1840s, sent on what were called ‘coffin ships’ to America by some philanthropic organisation rather like those who nowadays bring war babies out of Vietnam. Brita arrived in America with only a label on her dress with her name on.

  She was lucky enough to be looked after by a rich American spinster -Caroline Watson. She brought her up to be a well-dressed, well-educated young lady and in 1861 Brita and Miss Watson went to Europe.

  Whilst at an hotel in Switzerland they met an English don from Oxford (Edward Palin), who was climbing in the Alps. Edward Palin describes their meeting rather touchingly in a diary he kept of his stay in Switzerland. Unfortunately Brita (or Beda, as he calls her), was only 19 and he 36 … ‘otherwise I don’t know what might have been’.

  But he must have seen her again, for in 1867 they were married in Paris. Edward P had to give up a Fellowship at St John’s, Oxford (dons weren’t allowed to marry then). The college, who obviously regarded him highly, found him a living at Linton in Gloucestershire, where he spent the rest of his life with Brita, and their seven children, the eldest of whom was my grandfather.

  But what rankled with Joyce Ashmore (granddaughter of Edward Palin) is that, when Caroline Watson was on the point of death at Linton, some years later, and wanted to change her will in favour of the Palins, my great-grandfather would not let the necessary lawyers make the change as he didn’t want Miss Watson’s last hours sullied by their attentions. So … the Palins missed being very rich!

  Friday, October 7th

  End of second week’s writing. Seven thousand words for the week – 1,000 short of target. Have given them to Helen to read, and she has a useful and helpful reaction.

  She liked the first character, Avery, who begins the novel waking in a strange bed, but found the introduction of the second Avery brother was a disappointment, just as the first one was becoming interesting. The third brother – the radio interviewer – she just didn’t like.

  Good advice, but goodbye 5,000 words.

  Wednesday, October 12th

  A letter from Al Lev to tell me in desperation of Eve’s latest and most serious suicide attempt. He only just saved her. She’d locked the door and taken pills.

  At work at 9.30, but spend first half of the morning writing a letter to Eve – a much tougher proposition than the novel. But start by twelve, having responded to Al’s obvious plea for help.

  Various phone calls during the day bring messages of good cheer. Terry Hughes rings to appraise me of’near-ecstatic’ reaction to ‘Moorstones’ at the Heads of Department meeting this morning. Terry Gilliam reports a fantastic reaction to Jabberwocky at the Cairo Film Festival. An audience of 800 gave the film a standing ovation! Once again the virtues of not understanding the story become apparent!

  The Guardian didn’t like ‘Moorstones’, but a review in the Daily Mail calls the series ‘intelligent at the core’.

  Monday, October 17th

  Dr Chapman on the phone for the first time in many weeks. To say how worried he is about the content of the ‘Instant Record Collection’. I grit my teeth, for it is a little late in the day for fellow Pythons to start showing interest in a record they all seemed fairly apathetic towards two months ago. I was left to put it together, and it was mastered last week.

  But, as I haven’t seen the Doctor for a while, I’m quite happy to go round and talk over the record with him, as requested, later this afternoon.

  Graham, gin and tonic in hand, looks well scrubbed and far more normal than usual. His hair is brushed, not forward, but to the side, such as I haven’t seen all the time I’ve known him.

  GC definitely gives the impression of someone anxious to convey seriousness of purpose. The very summons itself is for business – but that crumples quickly and I am able quite easily to talk him out of most of his peripheral worries
. GC just seems pleased to have a fellow Python to chat to.

  His film, The Odd Job, has still got money problems, and the revised shoot is now February/March 1978. If GC is also going to play Brian in April/June ‘78, he is cutting it a bit fine. I think the prospect of this mammoth thespian effort is what is behind this latest attempt of his to find a level of non-drunken respectability and to restore a little of his natural seriousness to his affairs. I hope upon hope he succeeds, for I am fond of him – and the old Chapman warmth came through today despite his underlying anxieties.

  As I left he told me that he was thinking of taking the whole of December off, to go away somewhere and prepare – maybe on his own. Just walking round the Highlands on his own. Brave words. But Keith Moon was coming round in a half-hour, and I notice that Graham now helps himself to gin from a bar-style dispenser – so I don’t think all that much has changed.

  Friday, October 21st

  Four thousand words this week. I’m as bad as Leyland Cars in the constant failure to reach my production target.

  Jim F tells me that Spear and Jackson1 are suing the BBC for libel in the ‘Eric Olthwaite’Yarn!! What’s more, it sounds as though the cowardly Beeb are settling out of court.

  Monday, October 24th

  A letter from Eve Levinson. Evidently my spontaneous response to the news of her suicide attempt had contained the right things – and she touchingly said that I had said things that other, closer friends of hers found themselves ‘unable to say’. I’m glad the strength of my feelings worked, expressed as rudely as they were.

  Arrived at Shepperton at 9.25 for a 9.30 Annual General Meeting in the wonderful, mirror-panelled boardroom of the Old House.

  I was re-elected, Clive signed various bits of paper, and we talked for a while about Shepperton and memories of the men associated with the place – especially, of course, Alexander Korda. This is the 43 rd Annual General Meeting, so the place must have been going since at least 1933.

  Much talk over catering. At last this has become the main problem we have to face, and Paul Olliver, the tubby troubleshooter from Vavasseur, who has been given the job of investigating the frightfulness of the catering arrangements, has now expressed a wish to run them himself!

  Paul Olliver and I are booked to visit Pinewood for lunch and a look around, as I have often felt that we should know more about the opposition.

  We are not offered lunch – it now being 1.30 – and are taken round by a late-middle-aged gent, who personifies all that is wrong with Pinewood. He’s getting on, is rather shabby, and yet talks to us from Olympian heights about Pinewood being the greatest studio in the world, blah, blah, blah.

  Pinewood seems to have set its face into the past, favouring the traditional and the conventional. It remains Britain’s biggest studio, but not its brightest. Shepperton, with its mix of commercials, pop group influence and movies, feels much more fresh, alive and relevant to the ‘70s.

  Tuesday, October 25th

  Mostly business, and have no time to write any of the novel. Instead, spend an hour reading what I have so far. It’s patchy. Some sections I am pleased with, but at the moment it’s like an inconsistent car engine – good in some gears, jerky in others and not, as yet, getting me anywhere.

  Up to Elstree by 12.30 for the second visit to our Shepperton competitors in two days. John Skinner, our contact, is much less concerned than the Pinewood mogul with trying to pretend that everything in the garden is lovely. A realist, not a bullshitter.

  Elstree, of all the major studios, was the one which committed itself most of all to TV series in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Now the only TV series made in this four-wall studio is The Saint, and at the moment it’s empty of movies – though waiting for the prestigious new Stanley Kubrick – The Shining – to come in.

  It’s part of the magical nature of film studios that you should have such wonderful incongruities, like the front of the hotel which will be used for The Shining, rearing up sixty feet or so, but only a couple of hundred yards from Elstree High Street. Moby Dick was filmed 200 yards from the Elstree branch of Woolworths!

  Drive back in the sunshine past the huge bulk of the old MGM Borehamwood Studios – chief victim of the ‘70s slump, now a cold-storage firm.

  Wednesday, October 26th

  Terry J rang about ‘Curse of the Claw’, last of the series. Good reactions from him and those who saw it with him. But I had to tell him that I wasn’t feeling too excited about the general reaction. I think Clive James was not far wrong when he said the series ‘half worked’. In defence, I’d say that it was a pioneer in many ways, and suffered from being formularised or categorised. It was a series, and yet not a series, comedy and yet not comedy.

  TJ thinks that it was difficult for people to get their teeth into – there was no continuity to each show apart from opening titles and my own presence, in many different disguises. TJ also felt that I had wasted myself by playing too many dull, central roles.

  Sunday, October 30th

  I leave home with T Gilliam, Maggie and Amy [TG’s daughter] to go down to lunch at Terry Jones’ before going on to play charity football at Dulwich Hamlet. At lunch Allen Tinkley and wife Diana – who had put on Python in New York. Allen is interested in the new Python movie and has money available from Blake Edwards – whose wife Julie Andrews is, believe it or not a Python freak (she wanted us to co-star with her at the Palladium earlier this year!).

  Our team is quite impressive. Peter Purves, of Blue Peter, is in goal and myself, Terry J, Terry G, John Cleese and Graham Chapman – who, as a new variation to his silly behaviour, actually got changed this time, but was substituted as soon as he came out, being carried off on a stretcher before the ball was kicked.

  Home by seven. In my work-room this evening must reluctantly write ‘o’ against words target for this last week.

  Tuesday, November 1st

  Nearly 2,000 words on the typewriter. At ten to four we have a three-hour power-cut. Willy brings me up a candle and I carry on writing in very Dickensian spirit. The children all love the blackout and there are groans of disappointment when the lights come on again.

  Saturday, November 12th, Oxford

  A letter from Eve Levinson. She’s home and much on the mend, but now a cloud approaches. Some of the admin of her school are trying to take her job away – presumably people who try and kill themselves are unreliable. This sounds hard – but Eve does discuss the possibilities of life without the job. I think she only teaches now for the money.

  Helen’s mother rings to say that in last night’s wild winds one of the trees in the garden was uprooted. H decides to take the children up to Abbotsley for the day to see the devastation and help her mother clear up. I stay here to prepare a chat for Brasenose tonight.

  I leave for Oxford at four, having read my novel and done one hour’s prep on the talk. A very wild sky – some sunshine and blue patches, blotted out by a huge jet-black cloud. Rain, high wind. But it passes over me and by the time I reach Oxford it’s damp, cold and blustery, but the force of the storm has lessened.

  To BNC1 at seven. Am met by at least six rather nervous members of the ‘Events Committee’ in the lodge. Am taken to a room in the Principal’s lodgings for sherry, and meet four other members of the committee – two women, for Brasenose is now co-ed. Sherry is drunk, but the undergraduates don’t talk amongst themselves – they sit, awkwardly, and wait for me to speak.

  It is a peculiar feeling to know that you are an impressive, important, well-known figure – when inside you are probably as nervous as all the faces turned towards you. A funny little unnecessary barrier exists now – which wouldn’t be there if I hadn’t done Python. I try to muck in and defuse the reverence as quickly as possible. Only then will I feel less of a fraud.

  The JCR at Brasenose is absolutely packed, which is rather flattering. They say they’ve never seen as many people. Try to think back to the very few occasions in my own time when I went to hear a visiting celebrit
y. I remember the Union bursting at the seams for James Baldwin, but that’s about all. They are literally all around me – and it makes for a good atmosphere.

  In fact the whole talk works like good cabaret. They’re warm and generous with laughter (especially when I read ‘Fegg’ extracts and mention the Goodies) and I must confess that all my latent theatricality was released and I milked them rotten. Talked and answered questions for nearly two hours – until it got too hot – then signed autographs and was treated to drinks down in the Buttery.

  Sunday, November 13th

  Today, helped no doubt by the hard, bright freshness of a cool, sunny November morning, I have a feeling of completeness. The world makes sense this Sunday morning. Even the weather seems to be resting, peaceful and mellowed after the angry squalls of the last two days.

  There’s a smell of beef and Yorkshire pudding and from where I write I can see the chimney letting out wisps of smoke from the fire in the sitting room.

  Yesterday I read through the novel so far and was greatly heartened. I saw much that worked and I also saw clearly what didn’t work. I can see the way ahead and I can’t wait to get going again tomorrow.

  I just feel very happy and very content at this moment. Nothing is expected of me today except to be here at home. I am perfectly well aware that around the borders of my life are problems, difficulties, painful decisions, even human tragedies demanding my involvement. I know I cannot live in a continual vacuum of happiness – but a day like today restores energies, tops up batteries, rebuilds whatever faith one has.

  Today there is nothing more I want than what I have.

  Monday, November 14th

  T Gilliam rang with the offer of a ticket to Bertolucci’s igoo. It’s an all-day job, lasting over four hours with lunch in between.