Monty Python at Work

Michael Palin

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781780014760
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

Drawn from his published diaries, this is Michael Palin's account of the making of the Monty Python TV and stage shows, films, books and albums.

Monty Python at Work opens on 8th July 1969 with Michael Palin's diary entry for the first day of filming on the very first episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus. The diary entries that follow – up until the opening of their final feature film, The Meaning of Life, in 1983 – chart the tumultuous story of how the now famous shows and films were conceived and brought to life.

Palin records the evolution of Monty Python's comic style, the moments of creative inspiration as well as discord, the persistent self-doubt, and the happy accidents that shaped what are now classic comedy moments.

He captures too the group's many anarchic exploits (John Cleese in a bikini; driving a Budget Rent-a-Van up Glencoe in full chainmail; filming 'Scott of the Sahara' on the beach at Torquay…), as well as their battles with BBC suits, budget-conscious film producers and self-appointed censors.

Thanks to Palin's as-it-happened accounts, we are taken behind the scenes to watch with unrivalled intimacy the creative processes that led to the finished work, seeing how it was actually put together. By distilling everything about the Pythons at work, this edition of Palin's diaries serves as an intimate guide to the legendary shows, films, books and albums. It will delight Python fans everywhere, and be a source of instruction and inspiration to those who seek to follow in their footsteps.

'No writer-performer has combined professional hilarity and personal sanity more successfully than Michael Palin. Anyone interested in how comedy happens should hang on his every word.' David Mitchell

1

The first BBC television series: Monty Python’s Flying Circus (July–December 1969)

1969

I’ve opened the diary on the first day of Python filming. All the entries were written at my house in Oak Village, North London, except where otherwise noted.

Tuesday, July 8th

Today Bunn Wackett Buzzard Stubble and Boot¹ came into being, with about five minutes of film being shot around Ham House. We were filming Queen Victoria’s slapstick film with Gladstone, and the beautifully kept lawn and flower beds at the back of the house provided just the right kind of formality to play off against.

In the afternoon the changes in light from sudden brightness to dullness caused us to slow down a little, but by 6.00 we had quite a chunk of ‘Queen Victoria and Her Gardener’ and ‘Bicycle Repairman’ done, and it had been a very good and encouraging first day’s shooting.

Wednesday, July 9th

Arrived at TV Centre by 10.00, and was driven in a BBC car, together with John (Cleese), Graham (Chapman) and Terry (Jones), out beyond Windsor and Eton to a tiny church at Boveney. Dressed to the hilt as a young Scottish nobleman of the Walter Scott era, I was able to cash a cheque at a bank in the Uxbridge Road, without the cashier batting an eyelid.

Thursday, July 10th, Bournemouth

At Bournemouth we were met by a minivan and driven to the Durley Dean Hotel, where we were to stay that night. What with the grey weather, the lack of much to do (it was mainly Terry’s ‘Changing on the Beach’ film) and the gradual realisation that all Bournemouth was as drab and colourless as the Durley Dean, I felt very low all morning.

After lunch we filmed on, collecting crowds of people watching Terry take his trousers down.

Friday, July 11th, Bournemouth

In the afternoon filmed some very bizarre pieces, including the death of Genghis Khan, and two men carrying a donkey past a Butlins redcoat, who later gets hit on the head with a raw chicken by a man from the previous sketch, who borrowed the chicken from a man in a suit of armour. All this we filmed in the 80° sunshine, with a small crowd of holidaymakers watching.

John, Graham, Terry and myself took a first-class compartment and talked about Shows 4 and 5 and decided that we really had an excellent week filming. Ian Mac² is marvellous – the best director to work for and, with a fellow Scots cameraman, Jimmy Balfour, he really gets on with it.

Wednesday, July 16th

Filming today in Barnes. The weather continues to be excellent – if anything a little too hot – 80°+ all day.

Ended up the afternoon prancing about in mouse-skins for a documentary about people who like to dress up as mice. That really made the sweat pour down the chest.

Thursday, July 24th

Met with Ian and the two Terrys at the BBC. We listened to some possible title music – finally selected Sousa’s march ‘The Liberty Bell’ from a Grenadier Guards LP. It’s very difficult to associate brass-band music with any class of people. Most enthusiasts perhaps come from north of the Trent working class, but then of course it has high patrician status and support from its part in ceremonial. So in the end it is a brass-band march which we’ve chosen – because it creates such immediate atmosphere and rapport, without it being calculated or satirical or ‘fashionable’.

Friday, August 1st

We have four shows completed, but apart from the two weeks’ filming in July, there has been no feeling yet of concerted effort on behalf of the show (now, incidentally, renamed Monty Python’s Flying Circus). However, it seems that the next two weeks will be much harder work. August 30th is our first recording date, and we have another week’s filming starting on the 18th. Time is getting shorter. [Filming would be done on location, to provide scenes for insertion when the show was recorded with an audience in the studio.]

Sunday, August 3rd

John C rang up in the morning to ask if I felt like working in the afternoon, so I ended up in Knightsbridge about 3.00. It’s funny, but when one has written in partnership almost exclusively for the last three years, as Terry and I have done, and I suppose John and Graham as well, it requires quite an adjustment to write with somebody different. Terry and I know each other’s way of working so well now – exactly what each one does best, what each one thinks, what makes each of us laugh – that when I sat down to write with John there was a moment’s awkwardness, slight embarrassment, but it soon loosened up as we embarked on a saga about Hitler (Hilter), Von Ribbentrop (RonVibbentrop) and Himmler (Bimmler) being found in a seaside guest house. We do tend to laugh at the same things – and working with John is not difficult – but there are still differences in our respective ways of thinking, not about comedy necessarily, which mean perhaps that the interchange of ideas was a little more cautious than it is with Terry. However, by the time I left, at 7.15, we had almost four minutes’ worth of sketch written.

Tuesday, August 5th

Another workday at Eric’s.³ A good morning, but then a rather winey lunch. That is the trouble with working at John or Eric’s – both are surrounded by a very good selection of restaurants, temptingly easy to go to.

Wednesday, August 6th

Terry and I are determined to make this a really productive day. We work on till 8.00, finishing our big ‘Them’ saga. An 85% success day. Very satisfying – and we really worked well together.

Monday, August 18th

Started off for the TV Centre in some trepidation, for this was the first day’s filming (and, in fact, the first day’s working) with John Howard Davies, our producer for the first three shows. [They had already done some filming on location with Ian MacNaughton.] John has an unfortunate manner at first – rather severe and school-prefectish – but he really means very well. He consulted us all the way along the line and took our suggestions and used nearly all of them. He also worked fast and by the end of the day we had done the entire ‘Confuse-a-Cat’ film, a very complicated item, and we had also finished the ‘Superman’ film. All this was helped by an excellent location – a back garden in a neat, tidy, completely and utterly ‘tamed’ piece of the Surrey countryside – Edenfield Gardens, Worcester Park.

Thursday, August 21st, Southwold

Out to Covehithe, where we filmed for most of the day. The cliffs are steep and crumbling there and the constant movement of BBC personnel up and down probably speeded coastal erosion by a good few years.

Mother and Father turned up during the morning and appeared as crowd in one of the shots.

In the afternoon heavy dark clouds came up and made filming a little slower. We ended up pushing a dummy newsreader off the harbour wall, and I had to swim out and rescue this drifting newsreader, so it could be used for another shot.

Saturday, August 23rd

In the afternoon I went over to the TV Centre for a dubbing session. Everyone was there, including Terry Gilliam, who has animated some great titles – really encouraging and just right – and Ian MacNaughton, short-haired and violent. He seems now to have dropped all diplomatic approval of John HD, and is privately cursing him to the skies for not shooting all the film he was supposed to. I think this sounds a little harsh, as the weather was twice as bad with John as with Ian.

Thursday, August 28th

This morning rehearsed [in the studio] in front of the technical boys. Not an encouraging experience. I particularly felt rather too tense whilst going through it.

Watched the final edited film for the first show. A most depressing viewing. The ‘QueenVictoria’ music was completely wrong, and the Lochinvar film⁴ was wrong in almost every respect – editing and shooting most of all.

Terry and I both felt extremely low, but John Howard Davies, relishing, I think, the role of saviour, promised to do all he could to change the music on ‘Victoria’.

Saturday, August 30th

The first recording day. Fortunately Friday’s fears did not show themselves, so acutely. From the start of the first run [i.e. a rehearsal on the sets] the crew were laughing heartily – the first really good reaction we’ve had all week. The sets were good, John kept us moving through at a brisk pace and our fears of Thursday night proved unfounded when ‘Lochinvar’ got a very loud laugh from the crew. In the afternoon we had two full-dress runthroughs, and still had half an hour left of studio time [before recording the show with an audience].

Barry Took⁵ won the audience over with his warm-up and, at 8.10, Monty Python’s Flying Circus was first launched on a small slice of the British public in Studio 6 at the Television Centre. The reception from the start was very good indeed, and everybody rose to it – the performances being the best ever. The stream-of-consciousness links worked well, and when, at the end, John and I had to redo a small section of two Frenchmen talking rubbish, it went even better.

The diary almost buckles under the weight of writing, filming and recording. My resolve weakens and the 1960s slip away without another entry. How could I miss the creation of the Spanish Inquisition and ‘Silly Walks’? To be honest, because at the time neither I, nor any of us, I think, saw Python as a living legend, pushing back the barriers of comedy. We were lightly paid writer-performers trying to make a living in a world where Morecambe and Wise, Steptoe and Son and Till Death Us Do Part were the comedy giants. Monty Python’s Flying Circus was a fringe show, shouting from the sidelines.

1. The name of a fictional forward line from a John Cleese soccer monologue, and the current name for what was later to become Monty Python’s Fly...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Editorial Note
• Chapter One
• Chapter Two
• Chapter Three
• Chapter Four
• Chapter Five
• Chapter Six
• Chapter Seven
• Chapter Eight
• Chapter Nine
• Chapter Ten
• Chapter Eleven
• Chapter Twelve
• Chapter Thirteen
• Chapter Fourteen
• Chapter Fifteen
• Chapter Sixteen
• Chapter Seventeen
• Chapter Eighteen
• Chapter Nineteen
• Chapter Twenty
• Chapter Twenty-one
• Chapter Twenty-two
• Epilogue
• A Basic Chronology
• About the Author
• Copyright Information