Episode 962 - Eric Idle

Episode 962 • Released October 25, 2018 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Guest:Lock the gates!

00:00:09Marc:All right, let's do this.

00:00:10Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?

00:00:12Marc:What the fuck, buddies?

00:00:13Marc:What the fucking ears?

00:00:14Marc:What the fucksters?

00:00:15Marc:What's happening?

00:00:15Marc:I'm Mark Maron.

00:00:16Marc:This is my podcast, WTF.

00:00:19Marc:I'm recording this from a different location.

00:00:22Marc:I'm not in the garage.

00:00:23Marc:I imagine you can hear a little difference in the sound quality.

00:00:25Marc:I'm in a hotel room in New York City, in Manhattan.

00:00:30Marc:And I'm actually, I'm in a neighborhood that I'm not usually in.

00:00:34Marc:They put me up in Midtown.

00:00:36Marc:As some of you know, I will be...

00:00:39Marc:I'll be working on the Joker movie.

00:00:42Marc:I start tomorrow.

00:00:44Marc:And I'm not nervous yet.

00:00:47Marc:But I'm going to be.

00:00:49Marc:I know many of you know this.

00:00:50Marc:I know some of you still don't think I've addressed the reality of it properly, given my criticism of superhero movies.

00:01:00Marc:But I will stand by my...

00:01:03Marc:Not only my defense of taking this opportunity to do a scene with Robert De Niro and Joaquin Phoenix, but also in defense of this particular movie, it's not what you think.

00:01:15Marc:And that's the truth.

00:01:16Marc:I went out to a set.

00:01:18Marc:Can't tell you where it is.

00:01:19Marc:But it was outside the city.

00:01:22Marc:That's where they were set up for that day, and I got fitted for my outfit.

00:01:28Marc:And I've been going over my lines, and I'm ready.

00:01:33Marc:I'm ready in my mind.

00:01:34Marc:I don't know what it'll be like to be standing next to Robert De Niro doing a scene.

00:01:39Marc:Walking, actually.

00:01:40Marc:We're going to be walking.

00:01:41Marc:I think I can tell you that.

00:01:42Marc:We're going to be walking and doing a scene.

00:01:44Marc:I'm going to be walking and talking.

00:01:46Marc:to Robert De Niro, and then standing still and talking to both of them.

00:01:53Marc:I can tell you that much.

00:01:54Marc:I believe I'm free and clear to say that.

00:01:57Marc:I don't think I've let on anything, really.

00:02:00Marc:But I imagine tomorrow when I get there, I'll be like, holy shit.

00:02:03Marc:But who knows?

00:02:04Marc:I don't know.

00:02:05Marc:Did I mention who's on the show?

00:02:06Marc:Eric Idle is here from Monty Python.

00:02:08Marc:There's been a Monty Python week.

00:02:11Marc:So, New York.

00:02:14Marc:Yeah, I've been coming here.

00:02:16Thank you.

00:02:17Marc:I lived here.

00:02:18Marc:I had a big chunk of my life here.

00:02:19Marc:And I come here and I always have odd feelings.

00:02:22Marc:This is a perfect time of year.

00:02:25Marc:Fall on the East Coast when it gets a little crisp in the air and the sky is clear and the leaves are starting to turn.

00:02:34Marc:Some of them have turned.

00:02:36Marc:You're starting to just wear that one layer or two layers.

00:02:40Marc:It just does something to my brain.

00:02:44Marc:Gets me into a space, into a...

00:02:47Marc:It's not a high feeling, and I don't know really what to call it, but it's sort of thoughtful.

00:02:53Marc:It's a time of reflection.

00:02:56Marc:I don't really do what I used to do when I come here, and I don't know how to really stay here more than three days.

00:03:03Marc:I left for a reason.

00:03:04Marc:And I've talked about that before.

00:03:06Marc:You know, it gets to be a little overwhelming New York and you get to a point where you just got to get out.

00:03:11Marc:But so much of my my brain is interfaced with this city.

00:03:18Marc:I know how to be in New York, but I I think I finally sort of figured out why I don't really like staying here more than a few days when I used to just love it here.

00:03:27Marc:And the truth is, it's like nostalgia can be sort of malignant.

00:03:32Marc:I'm not that nostalgic a person.

00:03:33Marc:I don't really think about the past as a better time or think that things were necessarily better in the past, or I don't revise things from my past or sort of ruminate on them in a way that makes me feel like my present is no good.

00:03:50Marc:I mean, generally, I tend to forget most of

00:03:53Marc:of what I went through, if anything.

00:03:54Marc:And my memories of things, they never tend towards being better than what they were.

00:04:00Marc:They always go the other way, really.

00:04:02Marc:But I think that in general, our own personal histories and whatever we've come through and whatever we've gone through sort of define us

00:04:11Marc:And I looked up the word nostalgia.

00:04:14Marc:The definition is a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations, something done or presented in order to evoke feelings of nostalgia.

00:04:26Marc:But then if you go to the origin of nostalgia,

00:04:29Marc:It's Greek.

00:04:30Marc:It's nostos.

00:04:31Marc:I don't know if I'm pronouncing this right.

00:04:32Marc:I'm not some sort of linguistic person.

00:04:36Marc:Nostos, which is return home, and algos, which is pain.

00:04:42Marc:And that sort of evolved into homesickness.

00:04:46Marc:And then nostalgia evolved into acute homesickness.

00:04:50Marc:And I don't know if they got it right, because I think really what's most...

00:04:55Marc:cathartic to me about the origin is that return home pain i think that's more why we don't go back places like me i i understand how it evolved into like when you're not home that there's a pain for not being home but i just think if we break it down to nostos and algos is return home there is pain you return home and then the pain will come back so even in the natural evolution of the word to where it becomes homesickness in that

00:05:24Marc:idea of nostalgia is this essence of the trauma of the past.

00:05:29Marc:Like I go around this town.

00:05:31Marc:I'm like, why does it feel a little haunted?

00:05:33Marc:Whatever my life was here, it was a fucking struggle.

00:05:36Marc:All of it.

00:05:37Marc:I went through a marriage here.

00:05:39Marc:I went through my standup early standup career here.

00:05:41Marc:I went through drugs here.

00:05:42Marc:I went through complete chaotic, you know, existential earthquakes of self here.

00:05:48Marc:I, you know, I, you know, part of it defined me, but I just started to realize that this sort of,

00:05:54Marc:overwhelming kind of energy that makes new york amazing you know always had this tinge to it because i was always happy to be here but what was that tinge what was that isolating feeling what was that that kind of darkness around the edges outside of it just being new york was that holy shit i was a chaotic fucking mess when i was here

00:06:15Marc:just at all different points in the decade or so that I was here.

00:06:20Marc:And I realized like, oh, that's it.

00:06:22Marc:I mean, I'm not nostalgic for any of that.

00:06:25Marc:I mean, as cool as it is to come back and kind of walk past the old haunts and everything, that's what they are.

00:06:30Marc:They're old haunts for a reason because they haunted you and they still haunt you.

00:06:35Marc:And it's like, if you really put yourself back in that place from your past, it's like, I would never want to fucking be there again.

00:06:43Marc:So it's not getting me depressed because obviously you move through it to a point where you're like, well, I did okay.

00:06:50Marc:Even given all that bullshit, I made it out and I'm alive and things are going okay.

00:06:55Marc:But that doesn't mean that performing for four people or sweating alone in my apartment or wondering what the fuck was going to happen with my life, getting fucked up all the time, full identity crisis of what am I doing with my life and that stuff.

00:07:11Marc:It's all here.

00:07:11Marc:Sweaty Marin.

00:07:13Marc:wanders these streets eternally and it all comes down to like here's new york but here are those two blocks man here are those four blocks here are those two or three clubs this was your life for years and you were sweaty and angry and freaked out and terrified and fucking unsure of everything and just barely hanging on

00:07:37Marc:that guy you know if i go back to those two blocks or i go back to that area where those three clubs are i can still feel and see that part of me that that me who i was just wandering around sweaty and angry and lost and you know hanging hopes on nothing granted i got through it but when i get in it it's sort of like oh okay that's the darkness so maybe my realizing this

00:08:06Marc:Maybe I should just, you know what I'm going to do?

00:08:08Marc:I think I'm going to go downtown and I'm going to find sweaty Mark.

00:08:12Marc:I'll probably have to wait until it's like two in the morning.

00:08:15Marc:Maybe go over to the Selka, sit down with sweaty Mark and, and just go like, dude, you know, you can, you can leave, you know, you don't have to, you know, it worked out.

00:08:28Marc:It worked out.

00:08:28Marc:Sweaty Mark.

00:08:29Marc:so let's uh let's get together on this and frame it the right way so you're not nagging at me when i come back here yeah that was that experience i'm glad i put that together return home pain right so eric idol

00:08:51Marc:This was a great conversation.

00:08:53Marc:It was fun.

00:08:55Marc:Having the honor, actually, to talk to John Cleese and Eric Idle, it was an amazing experience.

00:09:01Marc:And when I talked to Eric, and I didn't talk too much about John about this specifically, but I remember, man, I remember, do you remember?

00:09:09Marc:I mean, I'm 55 now, and I remember when Monty Python was on PBS.

00:09:14Marc:That was where you had to watch it.

00:09:18Marc:And I remember when I first heard about it and turning that channel over to PBS, which was generally at that point, I guess it was in the 70s and I was young.

00:09:26Marc:It was kind of flat.

00:09:28Marc:It was not that engaging.

00:09:29Marc:I didn't watch Sesame Street.

00:09:30Marc:I didn't watch McNeil Lair.

00:09:32Marc:I didn't, you know, there were news programs on there, but I don't know that I really understood that.

00:09:37Marc:what public broadcasting was, but it was on there.

00:09:40Marc:But I remember late at night, you would tune in and those credits, the Terry Gilliam credits and .

00:09:48Marc:It was just like, it was fucking mind blowing.

00:09:51Marc:It's like, what am I watching?

00:09:53Marc:What the fuck is happening?

00:09:55Marc:And I was thinking about this alongside of thinking about nostalgia and thinking about when I was younger and thinking about getting into that space and thinking about sitting in front of that TV set late at night downstairs in the house I grew up in, alone in the dark in front of that TV set and that Monty Python came on and you were like, what is this?

00:10:15Marc:There is nothing like this on any planet except here and now.

00:10:19Marc:What is going on?

00:10:21Marc:And then it would just unfold.

00:10:22Marc:The show would unfold.

00:10:23Marc:And you're like, what am I watching?

00:10:25Marc:What's happening to my brain?

00:10:26Marc:It was fucking mind-blowing.

00:10:29Marc:And I just really kind of locked into that today when I was thinking about talking to you guys about this.

00:10:36Marc:That, like, there was nothing like it.

00:10:38Marc:And to this day, the remains...

00:10:40Marc:It remains that there's nothing like it.

00:10:43Marc:But watching that when it was happening at the time it was happening, you know, having that weird secret feeling of like, does anybody else know about this?

00:10:53Marc:This is insane.

00:10:56Marc:What am I watching?

00:10:58Marc:That was the beauty of it.

00:10:59Marc:And then just taking it in and trying to wrap your brain around it was spectacular.

00:11:04Marc:It was an incredible experience.

00:11:08Marc:And now I get to talk to one of the guys, another one of the guys.

00:11:12Marc:Eric Idle has a book out.

00:11:15Marc:It's his memoir.

00:11:16Marc:Always Look on the Bright Side of Life is now available wherever you get books.

00:11:20Marc:And this was a

00:11:21Marc:conversation that happened a few weeks ago in the garage and uh had a lovely time these guys are they're they're great i'd like i'd like to talk to palin i i maybe that can happen i don't know but uh but this is me and eric idol back in the garage

00:11:47Marc:I got your book and someone sent me the oral history of David Bowie and I noticed you weren't in there.

00:11:56Marc:Did they ask you to do that?

00:11:58Marc:Somebody wrote to me and said, I'm so sorry I didn't talk to you.

00:12:01Guest:But I don't think they knew we were friends.

00:12:04Guest:It wasn't a very broadcast.

00:12:06Guest:It just happened we happened to be friends for...

00:12:09Guest:For quite a long time, actually.

00:12:11Guest:When did you meet him?

00:12:13Guest:I met him through Bobcat Goldthwait here in the, I think, 80s.

00:12:17Guest:You met him through Bobcat?

00:12:19Guest:Yes.

00:12:19Guest:He was good friends, but he loved comedians.

00:12:21Marc:I had no idea that Bobcat knew him, and I've talked to... Bobcat has directed my show.

00:12:26Marc:He's been on this show a million times, and how did I not know he didn't know Bowie?

00:12:30Guest:Well, I think he introduced us, and then...

00:12:33Guest:Then we met on holiday at St.

00:12:37Guest:Bart's by Lorne Michaels.

00:12:41Guest:Yeah.

00:12:41Guest:And we got on really well.

00:12:42Guest:And then we went and stayed with him several times in Switzerland.

00:12:46Guest:Oh, really?

00:12:47Guest:Yeah, we got really good friends.

00:12:48Guest:And we went on a couple of cruises with him.

00:12:50Guest:With Bowie?

00:12:51Guest:Yeah.

00:12:51Marc:See, it always surprises me as a fan of people that they just have normal lives.

00:12:56Guest:That's the thing, isn't it?

00:12:58Guest:Yeah, who would have figured?

00:12:59Marc:So you're down in St.

00:13:01Marc:Bart's with Lorne Michaels, David Bowie?

00:13:03Marc:Yeah.

00:13:05Marc:And his kid was there, my kid was there.

00:13:07Marc:I just interviewed him.

00:13:08Marc:Duncan?

00:13:09Guest:Yeah, Duncan.

00:13:10Guest:There's a picture of him in the book, too.

00:13:11Guest:Yeah, I saw that.

00:13:13Guest:I guess we're on St... No, I don't know where we are on holiday there.

00:13:17Marc:Is it an odd thing, though, that when you reach a certain level of celebrity that you sort of have to hang out with the other ones?

00:13:25Yeah.

00:13:25Guest:I think it becomes neutralized.

00:13:28Guest:They aren't celebrities.

00:13:30Guest:They're just people you meet who happen to be in show business.

00:13:33Marc:In the same business you are.

00:13:34Marc:Yeah, that makes sense.

00:13:35Guest:Or not even the same business.

00:13:36Guest:They're doing music.

00:13:38Guest:I'm not in that business.

00:13:39Marc:You are in that business.

00:13:40Guest:Well, peripherally.

00:13:41Marc:But it almost seems like that was the thing you were most passionate about early on.

00:13:48Guest:Early on, when I first came to America, most of my life here was rock and roll, so I was up at night only.

00:13:53Guest:Yeah.

00:13:53Guest:And that was with Harrison and George and people.

00:13:55Guest:When was that?

00:13:56Marc:What year are you talking about?

00:13:57Guest:I suppose we're talking in 75.

00:13:59Guest:We first came here in 73.

00:14:01Guest:With the troupe?

00:14:02Guest:With the guys?

00:14:03Guest:Stayed at the Riot House, yes.

00:14:04Marc:Over on the Hyatt.

00:14:05Marc:It's now the Hyatt.

00:14:06Guest:Yeah, next to the Comedy Store.

00:14:07Guest:Well, they called it the Riot House.

00:14:08Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:14:09Marc:It was crazy.

00:14:09Marc:In 73?

00:14:10Marc:Yeah.

00:14:10Guest:Yeah.

00:14:11Guest:Oh, that must have been crazy.

00:14:13Guest:Well, we came out, it was crazy.

00:14:14Guest:All the guys?

00:14:16Guest:All except John, who missed a good time always.

00:14:20Guest:Just his nature?

00:14:21Guest:Well, he was older.

00:14:22Guest:You know, I mean, he literally is.

00:14:23Guest:How much older?

00:14:24Guest:Well, he's born in 1939.

00:14:26Guest:Yeah.

00:14:27Guest:So he will be what?

00:14:29Guest:Next year, he will be 80.

00:14:31Guest:80.

00:14:31Marc:Yeah.

00:14:32Marc:Is it possible?

00:14:33Marc:Yes.

00:14:33Marc:Yeah, next year.

00:14:34Marc:Yeah, my dad's 80 this year.

00:14:35Guest:So he's 79 this year, and I'm only 75.

00:14:38Guest:Yeah.

00:14:39Guest:I'm pale in two.

00:14:40Guest:We're the youngest, too.

00:14:41Marc:How was he at Cambridge when you were there if he was five years older?

00:14:45Guest:Because after the war, all of the servicemen got a preference to go into Cambridge in Oxford.

00:14:52Guest:Uh-huh.

00:14:52Guest:So he had to wait.

00:14:54Guest:His generation had to wait a couple of years.

00:14:56Guest:And he might have been liable for national service.

00:14:58Guest:But what he did is he went back to his old prep school and taught Latin for two years.

00:15:02Marc:Well, that's right.

00:15:03Marc:Yeah, I think he told me that.

00:15:04Marc:Yeah.

00:15:04Marc:This is crazy.

00:15:05Marc:Yeah.

00:15:05Guest:Yeah.

00:15:05Guest:And it's his happiest time.

00:15:07Guest:So it's even weirder.

00:15:08Guest:He's really a teacher, John.

00:15:10Guest:I mean, in many good ways.

00:15:12Guest:So 73, you're here.

00:15:13Guest:It's all rock and roll.

00:15:15Guest:73, we're here.

00:15:15Marc:That was the first trip over.

00:15:16Guest:It's the summer of rock and roll.

00:15:17Guest:We came out of touring Canada.

00:15:19Marc:As a group.

00:15:20Guest:As the group, and that was a rock and roll reaction.

00:15:23Marc:Was that the end of the TV show, Brown 73, no?

00:15:29Guest:The TV show was, we know, we were deciding whether to do a fourth series.

00:15:35Guest:And on the tour, John announced he was not going to do that.

00:15:38Guest:And so he left us at Vancouver, which was the last days.

00:15:42Guest:And we were taken by Neil Bogart, the record company, Buddha Records.

00:15:46Guest:So they took us down to L.A.

00:15:48Guest:to do promo because we were only on records here.

00:15:51Guest:And people only knew us as a recorder.

00:15:53Guest:They thought we were like, what's that called?

00:15:55Guest:Farsine Theater.

00:15:56Guest:They thought we just did comedy records.

00:15:58Guest:Well, there were two of them, right?

00:16:00Guest:Two records?

00:16:01Guest:I don't know what they released here.

00:16:04Guest:But they were on Buddha.

00:16:06Guest:And then we had to do, we did The Tonight Show.

00:16:08Guest:We did various weird promotional things.

00:16:12Marc:And that's interesting.

00:16:13Marc:So the TV show didn't start airing here until when?

00:16:17Marc:I would say it started in Dallas.

00:16:20Marc:um what a strange beginning isn't it yeah uh on the pbs dallas pbs ron devillier picked it up it was very cheap from the bbc and he noticed an immediate spike on sunday nights yeah and he persuaded other stations including new york right to run it other pbs stations i grew up in new mexico and i remember that was where you found it it was this strange thing to find where you know word got out and you're like that's on pbs what is it and it'd be on late at night and you'd be sitting there you're a kid and you're like what what am i watching

00:16:48Marc:I was like 13.

00:16:50Guest:And for about 25, 30 years, that was it.

00:16:52Guest:And that was so great for us because it ran.

00:16:55Guest:Nobody cared.

00:16:57Guest:Yeah.

00:16:57Guest:And it was on.

00:16:58Guest:People could find it.

00:16:59Guest:Right.

00:16:59Guest:In every city.

00:17:00Guest:Yeah.

00:17:00Guest:All over America.

00:17:01Guest:It didn't hit ratings or anything because it's on PBS.

00:17:05Guest:And they didn't cut it.

00:17:06Guest:Yeah.

00:17:06Guest:And they didn't have commercial breaks.

00:17:08Guest:Right.

00:17:08Guest:So it was just a perfect home.

00:17:10Guest:We wouldn't have been there but for that.

00:17:11Marc:And it's interesting because that cultivated a true...

00:17:15Marc:Cult audience.

00:17:16Marc:I mean, people became very dedicated to it.

00:17:19Marc:It was a unique find.

00:17:21Marc:Who would watch PBS?

00:17:22Marc:And you had this whole generation of people that were discovering something that almost no one knew about.

00:17:27Guest:That was the experience of Python.

00:17:30Guest:People sort of discovered it like a cult.

00:17:31Guest:Yeah.

00:17:32Guest:And it was a cult viewing.

00:17:33Guest:And, ooh, did we know this?

00:17:36Yeah.

00:17:36Guest:You know, when we ever did a tour, they would come out and they'd find other fans at the concert with them.

00:17:42Guest:Right, right.

00:17:43Guest:That was like news to them.

00:17:44Marc:Converts.

00:17:45Guest:Yeah.

00:17:46Guest:Other people.

00:17:46Marc:Oh, I see.

00:17:47Marc:I see.

00:17:47Marc:So they'd go to the show and they're like, oh, you like them too.

00:17:49Marc:Other people.

00:17:50Marc:Yeah.

00:17:50Marc:You know, my gosh, I thought it was just my little secret.

00:17:54Marc:So who did I talk to?

00:17:55Marc:It was Roger Waters, I think, who I talked to.

00:17:57Marc:of a generation of people that were born during World War II and sort of the effect that has.

00:18:03Marc:Because that's one big difference between Americans and Europeans is that Europeans, they got the shit bombed out of them.

00:18:11Marc:And it was a real thing.

00:18:12Marc:And that's something we have no real awareness of here.

00:18:16Marc:No.

00:18:16Marc:And you remember it?

00:18:17Guest:How old were you?

00:18:19Guest:I remember the sound of the sirens.

00:18:20Guest:I was about two and a half when the war ended in 45.

00:18:23Guest:Oh, the young...

00:18:25Guest:I was young, but yeah, but terror communicates itself very quickly.

00:18:31Guest:Yeah.

00:18:32Guest:Yeah, so it was an experience.

00:18:34Guest:And then after the post-war, it was very bleak because we had rationing until I was 10 or 11.

00:18:38Guest:Because it was rubble forever.

00:18:40Guest:It was rubble everywhere.

00:18:41Guest:And your father didn't die in the war.

00:18:43Guest:My father died hitchhiking home for Christmas from the RAF.

00:18:47Guest:And he made it through the war.

00:18:49Guest:Made it through the war from 1941 in the back, you know, in the Lancaster bomber.

00:18:54Guest:Wow.

00:18:54Guest:But he was in transport command mostly.

00:18:56Guest:Yeah.

00:18:57Guest:And then was sort of killed in a road accident on the way home for Christmas.

00:19:01Guest:Oh, my God.

00:19:02Guest:I know.

00:19:03Guest:But you don't remember that.

00:19:06Guest:No, I don't remember that.

00:19:07Guest:But you remember his absence.

00:19:09Guest:I think so, yes.

00:19:10Guest:I mean, they were always absent because they were in the war.

00:19:13Guest:Right.

00:19:14Guest:So they were away.

00:19:15Guest:But, I mean, I have pictures and his diaries and little things.

00:19:20Guest:It's very sweet.

00:19:20Guest:Afterwards, you put these things together.

00:19:22Guest:And do you have siblings?

00:19:24Guest:No.

00:19:25Marc:You were only child?

00:19:26Marc:Only child, yes.

00:19:27Marc:Wow.

00:19:28Marc:So after your father passed, I mean, did you just grow up with your mother?

00:19:32Guest:My mother went into sort of depression.

00:19:37Guest:So I grew up with what I call my gran and my pop, who I think were her uncle and aunt.

00:19:42Guest:And that was in Manchester.

00:19:43Guest:And they were very loving and very nice to me.

00:19:45Guest:So the depression lasted a lifetime?

00:19:46Guest:No.

00:19:47Guest:Well, yeah, on and off it did, actually.

00:19:48Guest:I think she was bipolar.

00:19:50Guest:But eventually then she got a job as a nurse in Wallasey, which is the other side of the Mersey from Liverpool.

00:19:58Guest:And I went to school there with her for the first time at five.

00:20:01Guest:Uh-huh.

00:20:02Guest:And you didn't stay there, though?

00:20:03Guest:Well, we're there two years.

00:20:04Guest:And then she got an offer from the RAF Benevolent Fund to put me into this boarding school, which paid for the entire education.

00:20:15Guest:Oh, so they did that.

00:20:16Guest:That's how you got into Oxford or Cambridge as well.

00:20:19Guest:Because of that, really, indirectly, 12 years later.

00:20:22Guest:But all the boys I was at school with had no fathers.

00:20:25Guest:Right.

00:20:25Marc:But some of them remembered them passing?

00:20:28Marc:I don't think so.

00:20:29Marc:We'd have been kids.

00:20:30Marc:Yeah.

00:20:31Marc:In the book, you sort of talk about how they were all crying.

00:20:37Marc:Well, that was early on.

00:20:39Guest:Seven, it's a bit of a shock.

00:20:41Guest:To be taken away from.

00:20:42Guest:Suddenly, you're in the middle of this sort of awful place.

00:20:46Guest:It was awful?

00:20:47Guest:Yeah.

00:20:48Guest:Yeah, no, it was awful.

00:20:49Guest:The senior school was awful.

00:20:51Guest:We were in a dormitory, and the senior school was 100 yards long.

00:20:54Guest:Right.

00:20:54Guest:With a bed every three feet.

00:20:55Guest:Oh, my God.

00:20:56Guest:Yeah, no, not great.

00:20:57Guest:No.

00:20:59Guest:Not much privacy.

00:21:00Guest:No privacy at all.

00:21:02Guest:And a lot of bullying and quite a lot of beating.

00:21:05Guest:Because you could be beaten by the prefects.

00:21:07Marc:Oh, really?

00:21:07Marc:Yeah.

00:21:08Marc:So that was okay then?

00:21:10Guest:Endemic.

00:21:11Guest:Yeah.

00:21:11Guest:And then the masters could beat you with canes.

00:21:13Guest:Really?

00:21:13Guest:It was their privilege, yes.

00:21:14Guest:Did that happen to you a lot?

00:21:16Guest:A lot.

00:21:16Guest:Why, because you were a smartass?

00:21:18Guest:Well, you could put it that way.

00:21:20Guest:I mean, I was once beaten for silent insolence.

00:21:23Guest:What chance does that give you?

00:21:27Guest:I didn't say anything.

00:21:28Marc:Yeah, but you looked.

00:21:32Marc:We sensed what you were thinking.

00:21:34Marc:Yes.

00:21:35Marc:And when did you, like with the British, the entire comedic sensibility is different, I believe, than here in the States.

00:21:41Marc:And there's a whole history of comedy that I learn about in bits and pieces.

00:21:45Marc:So when you were younger at that age, what were your first experiences with the idea of being funny or what was entertaining to you?

00:21:53Guest:Well, we didn't have much entertainment.

00:21:55Guest:What we got into most of all was rock and roll.

00:21:57Guest:So when Elvis came and saved our lives, we had little transistor radios.

00:22:01Guest:We actually built crystal sets first to listen to the music on the radio.

00:22:05Guest:So you're clever kids.

00:22:07Guest:Well, we were smart.

00:22:08Guest:We figured out, you had all this time.

00:22:11Guest:You've got 14 weeks of school.

00:22:14Guest:I mean, it's just endless.

00:22:16Guest:And then other people grew up and had teenage lives, you know, going out and dating and dancing.

00:22:20Guest:But we're stuck in this place.

00:22:21Guest:So we listened a lot to music.

00:22:23Guest:Rock and roll was very, very important.

00:22:25Guest:It was life-saving.

00:22:26Guest:Something was happening.

00:22:27Guest:Totally.

00:22:28Guest:Elvis totally saved our lives.

00:22:29Guest:Really?

00:22:30Guest:Do you remember the first time you heard it?

00:22:31Guest:Absolutely.

00:22:32Guest:Actually, it was Heartbreak Hotel, and it was 57, I think, and I was at this sort of holiday camp called Butlins, where you went for two weeks, and it was quite fun.

00:22:45Guest:But all the girls, they were dancing and jitterbugging to that.

00:22:49Guest:To Elvis?

00:22:49Guest:Yeah, Elvis.

00:22:50Guest:Broke it open.

00:22:51Guest:Unleashed the primal desire of all the children.

00:22:54Guest:He seemed to be on our side.

00:22:55Guest:He seemed to be talking to us.

00:22:56Guest:And were you playing music at that time?

00:22:58Guest:I was in a skiffle group, a folk group.

00:23:01Guest:And so I started off by playing harmonica.

00:23:03Guest:Can you still play?

00:23:05Guest:Brownie McGee.

00:23:07Guest:Sonny Terry, Brownie McGee.

00:23:08Guest:Sonny Terry, Brownie McGee.

00:23:09Guest:I want to pick a bale of cotton.

00:23:10Guest:I do all those things.

00:23:11Guest:And then we did sort of black protest songs because I think we associated somehow being all white in Wolverhampton about 3,000 miles from the deep south.

00:23:22Guest:Right.

00:23:22Guest:Maybe 5,000 miles.

00:23:24Guest:We somehow associated with those protests.

00:23:27Marc:The idea of repression and oppression and not being free to do what you want to do.

00:23:34Guest:Totally.

00:23:35Guest:So it was between that and...

00:23:36Marc:and uh british war films where they were escaping from cold it so we our school we called cold it it was like the coldest right and you had to break out always climbing over the walls so before but before elvis was there was a folk thing happening i mean do you remember because it seemed like that you grew up in this prime era of uh upheaval yes social upheaval so like folk was was popular and that was was that did you see yourself like i'm gonna do this

00:24:02Marc:No.

00:24:03Marc:No, no, no.

00:24:03Guest:It was fun playing guitar.

00:24:05Guest:We had a guitarist, a banjo player, and I was a harmonica player.

00:24:09Guest:And then eventually, at 14, I got myself a guitar and started to try and learn the basic chords and play songs and things and that.

00:24:17Marc:Yeah, and what was the, at that time, the comedic influences?

00:24:21Marc:Like, what were you listening to outside of Elvis?

00:24:23Marc:I mean, you listened into the radio.

00:24:24Marc:There must have been... No.

00:24:26Marc:No.

00:24:27Guest:Well, there were great shows on the radio, but they were always on when we were doing prep, which was like...

00:24:33Guest:in the evening just for change.

00:24:35Guest:We do two hours of prep, which means you go into the school and your classroom and then do hours of homework, compulsory watched homework.

00:24:43Marc:But you talk a little bit in the book about being somewhat – that you were a legacy of performers.

00:24:52Marc:Somewhere in your genealogy there were circus performers or –

00:24:56Marc:Oh, that's true, though.

00:24:56Guest:That's my great-great-grandfather was a circus ringmaster in the 1880s, 1890s.

00:25:01Guest:And did you go to the circus?

00:25:05Guest:I was taken to the circus at five in Bellevue, Manchester by my pop, who was looking after me.

00:25:10Guest:And the clowns treated us like royalty.

00:25:12Guest:It was unbelievable because his name was Bertrand.

00:25:15Guest:And this guy was called Bertrand in the 1880s.

00:25:17Marc:Your great-grandfather.

00:25:18Guest:And he was famous, a famous ringmaster.

00:25:20Guest:And the clowns, yeah.

00:25:22Guest:And the clowns are very respectful.

00:25:23Guest:And, you know, you're terrified of clowns when you're little.

00:25:25Guest:But I went backstage.

00:25:26Guest:That's kind of cool, you know.

00:25:28Guest:Circus royalty.

00:25:31Marc:Were you terrified of clowns?

00:25:32Guest:Yeah, they're kind of scary.

00:25:34Guest:They're anarchic, you know, especially in the real live performances.

00:25:37Guest:Anarchic.

00:25:38Guest:Very much so.

00:25:39Guest:I guess I never thought about it that way, but that's true.

00:25:41Guest:They have this sort of, like, the freedom to do that.

00:25:43Guest:Absolutely.

00:25:44Guest:And they mess around with the other performers.

00:25:46Guest:And they pretend to throw buckets of water over the audience.

00:25:48Guest:Yeah.

00:25:48Guest:That's true.

00:25:49Guest:Yeah.

00:25:50Guest:They're more fun, actually, in real life like that, in bunches, I think.

00:25:53Marc:Yeah.

00:25:54Guest:Groups of clowns are more fun.

00:25:56Guest:An isolated clown could be sad.

00:25:58Guest:Very sad.

00:25:58Guest:It becomes as soon as a bobcat with some kind of strange agenda to kill you, I think.

00:26:03Marc:But I guess I never really processed that.

00:26:06Marc:And you call it like Monty Python's Flying Circus.

00:26:09Marc:Where'd that come from?

00:26:10Guest:I mean, it was a very strange amalgamation, but only afterwards did I realize I was also in a circus.

00:26:17Guest:Yeah.

00:26:18Guest:I mean, that struck me as being really strange.

00:26:20Guest:And then I looked into my great-grandfather and found he was also a comedian when he started.

00:26:27Guest:Before he became a ringmaster, he was a comedian.

00:26:29Marc:Like doing the equivalent of pre-vaudeville, I guess.

00:26:33Marc:Burlesque houses.

00:26:34Guest:I would say musical vaudeville.

00:26:36Guest:He was in Folkestone in one of the censuses.

00:26:39Guest:There's him and another guy staying there.

00:26:41Guest:And they're listed as comedians.

00:26:42Guest:Really?

00:26:43Guest:I wonder if they were a team.

00:26:44Guest:I think they were.

00:26:45Marc:Yeah?

00:26:45Guest:No, no, they weren't.

00:26:46Marc:But I don't know what they did.

00:26:48Marc:Yeah.

00:26:48Marc:There's no historical record of that, no videotape, no audio tape, no transcripts.

00:26:55Marc:This is 1825.

00:26:55Guest:I know, I know.

00:26:57Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:26:57Guest:This very ancient crack record where they're doing mainly visual comedy.

00:27:02Marc:what a pity you can't see that but did you like like i have to assume that that living that kind of life in that sort of there it sounds dark it sounds like there was a darkness to it that it must have been a relief to laugh i would imagine laughter was very good because it was our rebellion and you laughed at the the authority uh

00:27:26Guest:And you subverted authority.

00:27:27Guest:We learned to climb over the walls and go to the off-license and buy beer and find mixed-made girls and big girls and all the decent things.

00:27:35Guest:The things you learn when you're in confinement.

00:27:37Guest:Well, yes, because it is sort of halfway between being in the military and being in prison.

00:27:41Guest:Was that the agenda of the school to get you into the military?

00:27:44Guest:I don't think so.

00:27:45Guest:I think they were kindly disposed.

00:27:48Guest:I mean, there were all these sort of semi-orphans that the RAF were paying for.

00:27:52Guest:Right.

00:27:52Guest:Because they're widows.

00:27:54Guest:So it was very hard for single women to have a job and to bring up a kid from 7 to 18.

00:28:01Guest:It's very, very hard.

00:28:02Guest:So I think they were being philanthropic.

00:28:06Guest:Yeah.

00:28:08Guest:you know, doing, and we got a decent education.

00:28:11Guest:I mean, I discovered, you know, I got on to Cambridge.

00:28:15Marc:Yeah.

00:28:16Marc:What were your interests when you were at the boarding school?

00:28:19Marc:I mean, like, because it seems like, you know, when you look at Python and you look at the work you did, even in music and stuff, that there is a historical tradition to it, that, you know, certainly the movies at Python, the stuff you guys dealt with was pretty deep stuff, lofty stuff.

00:28:35Yeah.

00:28:35Guest:Well, I always had two things.

00:28:36Guest:I had two toys, one of which was my gran gave me a typewriter.

00:28:39Guest:So I started to write stories.

00:28:41Guest:And that was an escape.

00:28:43Guest:And the other thing was my guitar, which was a fantastic mode of escape.

00:28:46Guest:And I suppose the third thing I would say is I learned to read.

00:28:49Guest:And that's an enormous escape if you're in a huge, crowded community of boys and things, you know.

00:28:55Guest:And, you know, we played football and messed around and played cricket.

00:28:59Guest:And, you know, it wasn't all bleak.

00:29:01Guest:Right.

00:29:02Guest:I mean, I think the overall arc of it was bleak because there's no emotional support.

00:29:08Guest:Right.

00:29:08Marc:Right.

00:29:09Marc:Yeah.

00:29:09Marc:No sort of like not, I guess, emotional guidance or someone to look up to.

00:29:15Marc:I mean, when you don't have a father, that's a it's a big void in terms of like, well, who am I going to be who is going to be my role model?

00:29:23Guest:But also your mother isn't there.

00:29:24Guest:So there are no hugs.

00:29:25Guest:There's no kind of, oh, well, you must feel blue.

00:29:28Guest:No, no, shut up.

00:29:29Guest:Get on.

00:29:29Guest:Go over there.

00:29:30Guest:You know, it's like.

00:29:31Guest:Yeah.

00:29:32Guest:So it's a sort of hard.

00:29:34Guest:I think it was a tough environment.

00:29:37Guest:But I learned a lot of really valuable things.

00:29:40Guest:Did you learn how to accept hugs eventually?

00:29:42Guest:Eventually.

00:29:43Guest:I persuaded women to let me hug them.

00:29:46Guest:Let them hug me.

00:29:47Guest:Yes.

00:29:47Guest:No, of course.

00:29:48Guest:I mean, after you left, it was just like a pursuit.

00:29:51Guest:Right.

00:29:51Guest:You know.

00:29:52Guest:desperate pursuit.

00:29:54Guest:Love me, somebody.

00:29:55Guest:Yeah.

00:29:55Guest:And then you have to learn how to treat, you know, how to actually appreciate women for being women, which takes a lot longer.

00:30:01Marc:Well, yeah, culturally they're having, it's a big issue now.

00:30:04Marc:Yes.

00:30:05Marc:They're not just things we play with, they're human beings.

00:30:08Marc:But, I mean, you have to learn that.

00:30:10Marc:I think that's true.

00:30:10Guest:Nobody teaches you.

00:30:11Guest:And also, I mean, you guys, I mean, you've got co-ed, so that's at least you know.

00:30:19Guest:They're around.

00:30:19Guest:Go with them.

00:30:20Guest:Right, right, right.

00:30:21Guest:See, they're there.

00:30:22Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:30:23Guest:Try to talk to them.

00:30:24Guest:We had to climb over schools and roofs and things to get towards them.

00:30:28Marc:So, Oxford, you went to Cambridge.

00:30:30Marc:Cambridge, sorry.

00:30:31Marc:I get the two confused.

00:30:32Marc:Is one better than the other?

00:30:34Marc:Are they both equally as...

00:30:35Guest:No, they have different kind of personalities.

00:30:38Guest:I mean, if you look at Python, Michael Palin and Terry Jones went to Oxford.

00:30:42Guest:John Cleese, me, and Graham Chapman were at Cambridge.

00:30:46Guest:And I think about Oxford are very much more...

00:30:51Guest:They're prissier.

00:30:52Guest:All the politicians in England come out of Oxford, always.

00:30:55Guest:So they're much more controlling.

00:30:58Guest:Cambridge is much more flamboyant.

00:30:59Guest:We produce spies.

00:31:01Guest:Basically, spies from the Russians were all Cambridge.

00:31:05Guest:And they were either gay or extremely flamboyant and drunk.

00:31:09Guest:And so there's much more enjoyment of Cambridge.

00:31:13Guest:And show business is tolerated.

00:31:15Guest:It's kind of an okay thing to do to be successful.

00:31:18Guest:In Cambridge.

00:31:18Guest:Right.

00:31:18Guest:Whereas in Oxford, you sort of have to apologize for it and write diaries forever.

00:31:22Guest:So as Alan Bennett said, you're not supposed to be very into showbiz much.

00:31:27Marc:Except politics is just like not entertaining show business.

00:31:30Guest:Well, politics is, I don't quite know what politics is, but I think there's a degree they do at Oxford they don't do at Cambridge.

00:31:36Guest:This is why they all go to...

00:31:38Marc:But that's funny that the prerequisite for spying is flamboyance and drinking and the tolerance of show business.

00:31:45Marc:I guess there is a lot of acting and role playing when you're a professional spy.

00:31:51Guest:There was a famous one.

00:31:52Guest:I think his name was Burgess.

00:31:53Guest:And he was in America.

00:31:55Guest:He's English.

00:31:56Guest:And he's in America.

00:31:57Guest:And he was an extraordinary alcoholic.

00:31:59Guest:And every night he got drunk and would tell everybody he was a Russian spy.

00:32:03Yeah.

00:32:03Guest:And they went, yeah, yeah, shut the fuck up.

00:32:07Guest:He was a Russian spy.

00:32:10Marc:He ran away.

00:32:11Marc:Eventually escaped.

00:32:13Marc:That was his big front, is that he was so upfront about it that people didn't believe it.

00:32:18Marc:It's kind of genius.

00:32:18Guest:I don't think it was a clever double bluff.

00:32:20Guest:He was just drunk.

00:32:23Marc:So when you get there, like, so how did that, so the state, how does it work?

00:32:29Marc:So you got a scholarship for being a good student?

00:32:34Guest:Yeah.

00:32:34Guest:In those days, you get accepted by the college.

00:32:37Guest:So 23 colleges at Cambridge.

00:32:39Guest:And the college will take you on.

00:32:41Guest:And then I was- 23 colleges in different places?

00:32:44Marc:In the same town.

00:32:45Marc:Okay.

00:32:46Marc:So the different colleges in the university.

00:32:48Marc:So there's an engineering college?

00:32:50Guest:No, they're not.

00:32:51Guest:No, you're in a college and that houses you and tells you, but you could be doing math, you could be doing art, you could be doing architecture.

00:32:59Guest:It doesn't matter what you're doing.

00:33:01Guest:And then you go and study in the university place for whatever you're doing.

00:33:05Guest:Right.

00:33:06Guest:I get it.

00:33:06Guest:And so.

00:33:07Guest:What'd you get accepted to do?

00:33:09Guest:English, which is nothing at all.

00:33:11Guest:It's important.

00:33:12Guest:I mean, I. No, you just read.

00:33:14Guest:I didn't do much except do comedy.

00:33:16Guest:I actually stumbled into comedy very early on.

00:33:18Guest:I met John Cleese in my second term.

00:33:21Guest:Yeah.

00:33:21Guest:And I auditioned and I did a college review.

00:33:24Guest:And the first piece I did ever publicly was a piece he'd written.

00:33:27Marc:Really?

00:33:28Marc:Yeah.

00:33:28Marc:So, but you weren't, like, I guess in terms of, like, when I look at some of the lyrics of the songs, you weren't in any way obsessed with, you know, the poetry of Alexander Pope or Swift or the funnier Shakespeare, like those kind of, like, you know, historical satirist

00:33:44Marc:Sure, I still am.

00:33:45Guest:I love Swift.

00:33:46Guest:I love Pope.

00:33:48Guest:Absolutely.

00:33:49Guest:It was nice to read English literature.

00:33:50Guest:Even Chaucer was hilarious.

00:33:52Guest:Absolutely.

00:33:53Guest:But the thing about studying English is you don't have to go to the lectures.

00:33:57Guest:You can read the book in three minutes.

00:33:59Guest:Everything he's going to say at the lecture, you could have skimed through.

00:34:03Guest:And really, they're interested in what you think.

00:34:05Guest:But you have to read the text and then respond to it.

00:34:08Marc:So what is the trajectory assumed of somebody studying English at Cambridge?

00:34:15Marc:Was it like here, like you just sort of like, well, that's a degree I have.

00:34:18Marc:Now I work at Photomat or a copy store or what?

00:34:22Marc:I guess you go on to be a teacher.

00:34:24Guest:I don't honestly know what.

00:34:25Guest:I guess you could be a journalist.

00:34:27Guest:You could be a writer.

00:34:28Marc:I have an English degree and I'm in my garage talking to Eric Idle.

00:34:31Guest:And I'm here in the garage with my English degree talking to you.

00:34:34Guest:So, you know, it's nice because I would find that at Cambridge, everybody just studying everything else had already read the same books I was reading.

00:34:43Guest:Right.

00:34:43Guest:But they were becoming architects.

00:34:45Guest:Right, right.

00:34:46Marc:And mathematicians.

00:34:47Marc:Yeah, they actually had the foresight to create a life for themselves that had some security, perhaps.

00:34:52Marc:Right.

00:34:53Guest:But it turned out it was a good thing to be because I didn't have anything particular to do.

00:34:58Guest:So I went into rep for about six minutes and then I got into writing comedy.

00:35:02Guest:What's rep?

00:35:03Guest:Repertory theater.

00:35:04Guest:Oh, okay.

00:35:05Guest:We did, oh, what a lovely war, Leicester rep.

00:35:09Guest:While you were at Cambridge?

00:35:10Marc:After, just leaving.

00:35:11Marc:Oh, so when you're at Cambridge, you meet Cleese and you meet who, Graham?

00:35:15Guest:No, Graham had gone down, but I met him at the end of that year.

00:35:18Guest:I met Michael Palin and Terry Jones at the Edinburgh Festival.

00:35:21Marc:right but clea but when you were at cambridge and started doing comedy because i talked to uh sasha baron cohen who i believe could not get into he was turned down from the what is it the footlights footlights now the footlights you know this is sort of like important for uh yeah but he went on to study uh clowning with a master

00:35:40Marc:I forget the guy's name.

00:35:42Marc:But I think it was a sort of deciding factor in his comedic career was that he was turned down from Footlights.

00:35:49Marc:Was Footlights a historical club that had been there forever?

00:35:52Marc:1883.

00:35:55Guest:What was the idea of it?

00:35:56Guest:I was just a review society, a comedy society.

00:35:59Guest:And it had its own club room.

00:36:01Guest:So it was a little stage at one end and a bar at the other end, which opened at 1030 at night.

00:36:06Guest:And you could stay as late as you wanted.

00:36:08Guest:So that was our social life.

00:36:10Guest:They did lunches.

00:36:11Guest:So from about three drinks.

00:36:13Guest:No.

00:36:15Guest:But drink.

00:36:16Guest:Yeah, yeah, sure.

00:36:16Guest:I mean, the pub's closed at 10.

00:36:18Guest:Right.

00:36:18Guest:You know, when we opened at 10, 15, it was really good, you know.

00:36:21Guest:So you just went on.

00:36:24Guest:But it was very social.

00:36:25Guest:And then I got to watch all these people like John Cleese and Bill Hardy and Tim McTaylor all performing and doing stuff.

00:36:31Guest:Yeah.

00:36:32Guest:And that's the only way you can learn comedy.

00:36:34Guest:Yeah.

00:36:34Marc:Yeah, and so what was the thing that he wrote that you performed?

00:36:38Marc:Like, how did you get in?

00:36:38Marc:Do you have to audition?

00:36:39Marc:What is the process?

00:36:40Guest:Yes, you have to write a piece and audition, which I did.

00:36:43Guest:And I got in with Jonathan Lynn, who's a film director, Johnny Lynn.

00:36:46Guest:He did Nuns on the Run, and he did...

00:36:49Guest:Vinny.

00:36:50Guest:Oh.

00:36:50Guest:My cousin Vinny.

00:36:51Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:36:52Guest:That's a big movie.

00:36:52Guest:Yeah.

00:36:53Guest:And what did you write?

00:36:54Guest:Do you remember?

00:36:55Guest:I wrote a sketch, but the one I did with John was actually based on what's called BBCBC.

00:37:00Guest:Yeah.

00:37:00Guest:And it was a BBC newsreader.

00:37:02Guest:Yeah.

00:37:02Guest:Good evening, here is the news.

00:37:05Yeah.

00:37:05Guest:And it was like, and I did the weather forecast.

00:37:08Guest:Right.

00:37:08Guest:There have been, over the last few days, it's been a bit rough.

00:37:10Guest:There's been plague of frogs, lizards.

00:37:13Guest:Of the apocalyptic weather forecast.

00:37:15Marc:Yeah.

00:37:15Guest:And now moving in from the northeast.

00:37:17Guest:Yeah.

00:37:17Guest:Frogs.

00:37:17Guest:Yeah.

00:37:18Guest:Right, right.

00:37:19Guest:Yeah.

00:37:20Guest:And after that, death of all the firstborn.

00:37:21Guest:Yeah.

00:37:22Guest:Sorry about that, Egypt.

00:37:25Guest:You went biblical.

00:37:26Guest:It was a biblical news.

00:37:27Guest:It was BBCBC.

00:37:28Guest:So that got you in?

00:37:30Guest:That got me to know a learner.

00:37:32Guest:Cleese came across to me and was introduced, and he asked me to join the Footlights, and I'd never heard of it.

00:37:37Guest:So he said, no, just come and audition.

00:37:39Guest:So we did, and we got in.

00:37:41Marc:Because I watched some old Peter Cook stuff and Dudley Moore.

00:37:43Marc:Peter Cook.

00:37:44Marc:And it just seemed like, you know, the way he approached characters was something like the way you guys did.

00:37:49Guest:Were you guys contemporaries or was he older?

00:37:51Guest:Peter had gone down about four years, but his voice was everywhere.

00:37:54Guest:Everybody taught like this because he's Elwisty.

00:37:57Guest:I'd like to be a miner, but I don't have the Latin.

00:38:00Guest:I did the mining exam.

00:38:02Guest:They said, what is your name?

00:38:03Guest:And I got 50% on that.

00:38:07Marc:There was this weird kind of tradition.

00:38:10Marc:It's because I watched some of the goon show, and there was just really some relentless satirizing between classes.

00:38:20Marc:The Irish took a big hit on some of the goon show stuff.

00:38:25Guest:Yeah.

00:38:25Guest:Well, they come out of the army.

00:38:27Guest:Those Goon Show people came out of the army.

00:38:29Guest:Yeah.

00:38:29Guest:Of Peter Sellers and Harris Eacombe, all that lot.

00:38:32Guest:And then after them came Peter Cook and Dudley Moore and John.

00:38:35Guest:And they would be on the fringe.

00:38:36Guest:And they were the first satirists.

00:38:38Guest:Yeah.

00:38:38Guest:And they mocked the prime minister and the army and the queen.

00:38:42Guest:Was that happening when you were in college?

00:38:44Guest:That's when I...

00:38:45Guest:Just before I got there, 1962, I saw that show and it changed my life.

00:38:49Guest:So, oh, really?

00:38:50Guest:Yes.

00:38:50Guest:I laughed so hard.

00:38:52Guest:I couldn't believe you were allowed to laugh at these things.

00:38:55Guest:Right.

00:38:55Guest:Because you weren't allowed to laugh at these things openly in school.

00:38:57Guest:Right.

00:38:57Guest:Or even say it, especially in a government-run school.

00:39:01Guest:No.

00:39:01Guest:Not in front of the grown-ups.

00:39:03Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:39:04Guest:You said everything, but you didn't.

00:39:06Marc:So the mid-60s was a time where a lot of that stuff broke open, right?

00:39:10Guest:It was a time of satire in England, 63, 64.

00:39:14Guest:There was a show called That Was the Week That Was on television, which was David Frost.

00:39:18Guest:And so that brought down a government.

00:39:20Guest:It actually changed the conservative government.

00:39:22Guest:The power.

00:39:23Guest:The power of satire on television.

00:39:24Marc:And what else was going on?

00:39:26Marc:Because I've talked to musicians, and it seemed like that in London at that time in the 60s, there was just so much going on with theater, with music.

00:39:37Marc:Everything was changing very quickly.

00:39:40Guest:It was a renaissance, and it was because there was nothing there.

00:39:44Guest:There's bomb sites.

00:39:45Guest:There aren't another generation of people who are on television.

00:39:48Guest:There wasn't any television.

00:39:49Guest:There aren't another people who are comedians.

00:39:51Guest:They were in the army.

00:39:54Guest:playing field and created art the young people the young people all of the misfits were sent off to art college yeah and they all became rock and roll right the who uh the beatles the stones largely all were in art colleges and they came out of art colleges yeah and they were the some bad boys and so they started early but we were the same generation and our lot went into you know eventually television and radio

00:40:20Marc:Oh, that's wild.

00:40:21Marc:And it's sort of interesting that all those guys, like when you talk about, and it's just me talking about music, when you bring up Sonny Terry and Brian McGee, which is a fairly esoteric reference, that those records came through in Britain.

00:40:35Marc:There must have been some premium put on, like, where'd you get that record?

00:40:39Marc:Like, it must have been sort of difficult to get those records.

00:40:41Marc:Well, I think that was folky.

00:40:43Marc:That was the folk work.

00:40:43Marc:It was kind of a bit hip for a little while.

00:40:46Marc:It was folk.

00:40:47Marc:But even the blues records, the thrill of getting those, because all those bands, The Who and The Stones and The Beatles, not to the same degree, were guys that were influenced by American blues, turned it inside out and then resold it to America.

00:41:02Marc:It was kind of a genius.

00:41:03Marc:Yeah.

00:41:03Guest:I think the answer to that question is they came in on the banana boats into Liverpool, and they came from the West Indies, and they came from America.

00:41:10Guest:Liverpool's a port, like Hamburg's a port.

00:41:13Marc:So the records did.

00:41:13Guest:So the records came with sailors.

00:41:15Guest:We brought them in, and they liked it, liked the music, and the music spread that way.

00:41:19Marc:Yeah, it kind of blows me away what was going on there.

00:41:22Marc:And theater was like crazy then too, right?

00:41:25Guest:Theater was angry young men.

00:41:27Guest:They were protesting.

00:41:29Guest:It changes over from being rather polite theater of Noel Coward.

00:41:32Guest:Yeah.

00:41:32Guest:And that goes and becomes very dated suddenly.

00:41:35Guest:And there's this play called Look Back in Anger by John Osborne.

00:41:38Guest:Right, that's it.

00:41:39Guest:Which changes everything.

00:41:40Guest:Right.

00:41:40Guest:And so they become, they were known as the angry young men.

00:41:43Guest:And that happens simultaneously to the rock and roll and to you.

00:41:46Guest:That's at the same time just as we're teenagers and early 20s, yes.

00:41:50Marc:So, like, now you have this, like, this open, it's like the Wild West, you know, for comedy.

00:41:56Marc:Like, you know, the floodgates have been open.

00:41:58Guest:And there's nobody stopping you getting in.

00:42:00Marc:Yeah.

00:42:00Guest:You're, in fact, we were encouraged to come into television.

00:42:03Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:42:04Guest:Frost gave us all jobs.

00:42:04Guest:Yeah.

00:42:06Marc:And how did you meet Jones and Palin if they were at Oxford?

00:42:11Guest:Because I was part of the Edinburgh Festival, the Cambridge Footlights, and they were part of the Oxford Review.

00:42:17Guest:So we went to check them out.

00:42:18Marc:So when you get to Edinburgh, which is still a festival, it's the same festival every year?

00:42:22Marc:The one that's still going on now?

00:42:23Marc:Except it's huge.

00:42:24Guest:now i know everybody looks for comedians but beyond the fringe yeah refers to the festival fringe that's where they came out of yeah and so we're only a few years later there's a tradition for oxford and cambridge to send reviews there yeah um we we we were part of that and that's where you met them that's where i went to see them and where i saw palin first performing and jonesy first performing

00:42:43Guest:And, you know, you're going to say hello.

00:42:45Guest:They're the same age.

00:42:46Guest:You're doing the same things.

00:42:47Guest:So funny.

00:42:48Guest:They were so funny.

00:42:50Guest:Peyton was very funny.

00:42:51Guest:He was hilarious.

00:42:52Guest:I mean, I saw him performing for the first time.

00:42:54Guest:Yeah.

00:42:55Guest:I never forget the sketch.

00:42:57Guest:He is really funny.

00:42:59Guest:Yeah.

00:42:59Guest:What was the nature of the sketch?

00:43:00Guest:Well, he came on stage and he was playing an old performer.

00:43:03Guest:And he said, you know, hello, every people.

00:43:06Guest:I'd like very nice to be here.

00:43:08Guest:And he looked down and there's this big present beside him.

00:43:11Guest:Oh, what's this?

00:43:13Guest:And he looks down and it says, oh, to Mikey from the audience with love.

00:43:19Guest:Oh, every people.

00:43:22Guest:Oh, my gosh, I'm so touched.

00:43:24Guest:I thought I was too old and out of touch and nobody cared about me anymore.

00:43:29Guest:Well, I don't know what to do.

00:43:31Guest:I can only sing my biggest hit, When Love Breaks Your Heart in a Million Tiny Pieces.

00:43:37Guest:And the box blew up.

00:43:44Guest:It was such a great joke.

00:43:46Guest:And he played it so well.

00:43:47Guest:It was just the motion of it all, you know.

00:43:51Marc:So did you start writing together shortly after that?

00:43:54Guest:They're at Oxford, and then we finish behind.

00:43:57Guest:We're at Cambridge.

00:43:58Guest:So we finish our courses, and then we find ourselves all writing for The Frost Report, which is a BBC.

00:44:04Guest:You just all got hired.

00:44:05Guest:And so we're all hired.

00:44:06Marc:Yeah, we're writing.

00:44:07Guest:He's writing with Terry.

00:44:08Marc:I was writing a bit, I think, with Graham.

00:44:10Marc:It's so funny in my memory.

00:44:11Marc:I don't know.

00:44:12Marc:Like, I didn't know him, Frost, as a, you know, as a comedian.

00:44:17Guest:Well, he's not very funny.

00:44:18Guest:He wasn't very good, but he was a good host.

00:44:20Guest:And he was very good at knowing who was funny.

00:44:23Guest:He would bring people in.

00:44:25Guest:Like, he gave us all jobs.

00:44:26Guest:I'm 23.

00:44:27Guest:I'm writing on this big hit show on the BBC.

00:44:30Marc:Because I think one of the things that Python, outside of just comedically...

00:44:37Marc:was revolutionary was because of the structure of lack of structure.

00:44:42Marc:The movement from sketch to sketch, piece to piece, it obviously wasn't random, but it didn't abide by any sort of set structure.

00:44:52Marc:You just kind of flowed lyrically almost.

00:44:54Marc:We got rid of punchlines.

00:44:56Guest:Yeah.

00:44:57Guest:But don't forget, we'd written for all these other shows.

00:44:59Marc:Which other ones?

00:45:00Guest:We were professional writers.

00:45:01Marc:Yeah.

00:45:01Guest:The two Ron is, you know, Tommy Cooper.

00:45:04Guest:Everybody had written for various other big English comedians.

00:45:06Guest:Didn't you write a children's show for a while?

00:45:09Guest:And then we were on a TV show called Do Not Adjust Your Set.

00:45:12Guest:Who was?

00:45:13Guest:All of you?

00:45:13Guest:I was asked to do it, and I asked for Mike and Terry to be with me.

00:45:16Guest:Yeah.

00:45:16Guest:And then Terry Gilliam eventually came and joined us.

00:45:20Guest:And that's where you met Terry Gilliam?

00:45:22Guest:Yes, he just came in.

00:45:23Guest:On the kids' show.

00:45:23Guest:On the kids' show, and Mike and Terry hated him.

00:45:26Guest:And I said, no, no, he's got something.

00:45:28Guest:He's American.

00:45:29Guest:He's American?

00:45:30Guest:Yeah.

00:45:30Guest:What the hell do we need this American for?

00:45:32Marc:Yeah.

00:45:33Guest:And I said, well, he can draw.

00:45:34Guest:He's funny.

00:45:35Guest:He's very weird.

00:45:36Marc:He's cute.

00:45:37Marc:So I persuaded them.

00:45:39Marc:To bring in Terry.

00:45:40Marc:And then, yeah, absolutely.

00:45:42Marc:And so I think that seems to make good sense to me that you all sort of started to explore possibilities on a children's show.

00:45:49Guest:It was nice we had a children's show because we decided we wouldn't talk down to children.

00:45:54Guest:We just do what we found funny.

00:45:55Guest:But we couldn't use blue.

00:45:57Guest:Right.

00:45:57Guest:Which is also a very good discipline.

00:45:58Guest:Yeah.

00:45:59Guest:It's so easy to just be rude.

00:46:00Guest:Yeah.

00:46:01Guest:For shock.

00:46:02Guest:So you had to be you had to sweeten it.

00:46:03Guest:It wasn't never sweet.

00:46:05Guest:It's kind of in your face.

00:46:06Guest:It's still a bit sort of odd.

00:46:08Guest:Yeah.

00:46:08Guest:And we won lots of awards.

00:46:09Guest:It was very popular.

00:46:10Guest:And then it was on at 525.

00:46:12Guest:And so a lot of people would come home from work early to watch it.

00:46:16Guest:Grownups.

00:46:17Guest:Including John and Graham, who were writing movies for Peter Sellers at the time.

00:46:22Guest:They would stop and watch our show.

00:46:25Marc:What movies did they write for Peter?

00:46:28Guest:Magic Christian?

00:46:29Guest:Yes.

00:46:30Guest:Yes.

00:46:30Guest:Oh, the Terry Southern bit.

00:46:32Guest:John's in that.

00:46:32Guest:Yeah.

00:46:33Guest:And so is Graham, I think, in a scene.

00:46:34Guest:They were rewriting Terry Southern things.

00:46:37Guest:And maybe some other things for Frost.

00:46:40Guest:There was a Peter Cook one, The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer.

00:46:43Guest:They might have been involved in that.

00:46:44Guest:There were serious script writers.

00:46:47Marc:But they locked into the children's show because they're like something.

00:46:50Guest:They watched the children's show because John said it was the funniest thing on television.

00:46:53Guest:So they wanted to just laugh.

00:46:55Marc:What were you doing that was different than what might have been thought of as a children's show?

00:46:59Guest:I think it was just more in-your-face kind of Python thing.

00:47:03Guest:Yeah.

00:47:03Guest:It was kind of silly.

00:47:05Marc:Yeah.

00:47:05Guest:It was very silly.

00:47:06Guest:Yeah.

00:47:06Guest:And then we had this group called the Bonzo Dog Doodah Band who were on every week.

00:47:10Marc:Yeah.

00:47:10Guest:It was from an art school, really weird group.

00:47:13Guest:Yeah.

00:47:13Guest:And...

00:47:14Guest:I think the whole thing was very sort of... It was kind of funny.

00:47:18Guest:It was only about 25 minutes.

00:47:19Guest:And the kids loved it.

00:47:20Guest:The kids loved it.

00:47:21Guest:And then the adults loved it, too.

00:47:23Guest:And we won awards.

00:47:25Marc:That's an amazing feat.

00:47:26Marc:Well, culturally, that seems to be the drive of the movie industry now.

00:47:31Marc:It's like if you can get kids and grown-ups to enjoy the thing, then it's good.

00:47:35Marc:Like Adventure Time is an... A lot of the animated stuff's like that now.

00:47:39Marc:Right.

00:47:40Marc:Have you ever had...

00:47:42Guest:you know people who watched it as a kid who who went on to creative professions come up to you and say like that changed my entire view of things people remember that show of a certain age yeah but then there's python and then there's i mean you know it depends what age you come in yeah you know what you tune into peter cook and dudley moore had their own series called not only but also yeah it was really funny yeah the bbc wiped it

00:48:06Guest:Why?

00:48:06Guest:To save tape.

00:48:08Guest:Oh, really?

00:48:08Guest:Yeah.

00:48:09Guest:It's like two-inch Ampex.

00:48:10Guest:They wiped it.

00:48:11Guest:So only the bits that remain are on film because they shot some film bits, like The Leaping Nuns of Norwich.

00:48:18Guest:Yeah.

00:48:19Guest:Which is Peter on a trampoline popping up and down.

00:48:22Guest:Yeah, The Leaping Nuns of Norwich.

00:48:24Guest:Very, very funny.

00:48:26Guest:He was hilarious.

00:48:27Guest:I knew him.

00:48:27Guest:I loved him.

00:48:28Guest:He was adorable.

00:48:29Guest:He was unique because he was the only one who did improv.

00:48:32Guest:Nobody else.

00:48:33Guest:Improv wasn't existing in our day.

00:48:35Guest:It was all scripted.

00:48:36Guest:But Peter could improvise an entire cabaret.

00:48:39Guest:Oh, really?

00:48:40Guest:Yeah, absolutely.

00:48:41Marc:And he was unique in that way.

00:48:42Guest:He was very unique in that way, and everybody did his voices, and he went on television, and yeah, he was groundbreaking.

00:48:48Guest:And did you eventually have a relationship with him?

00:48:51Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:48:52Guest:We got to be great friends.

00:48:54Guest:We were on a film, Yellow Beard, where we had a lot of fun.

00:48:56Guest:We went up the Nile together with John Cleese and Stephen Fry.

00:49:00Guest:We had this great trip up the Nile.

00:49:02Guest:You went up the Nile?

00:49:03Guest:Yeah.

00:49:04Guest:Just as a vacation, an adventure?

00:49:05Guest:John, to celebrate his 100th wedding with his wife, who he now doesn't refer to, took about 40 friends up the Nile for three weeks.

00:49:16Guest:On a boat.

00:49:17Guest:On a boat.

00:49:17Guest:It's an amazing time.

00:49:19Guest:So it's like, you know, you've got Peter Cook every night to make you laugh.

00:49:22Guest:You've got William Goldman was on there.

00:49:25Guest:You know, Stephen Fry would sit on the deck every day and read this children's book called Bunter on the Nile at tea time.

00:49:31Guest:I mean, it was just great.

00:49:34Guest:That's amazing.

00:49:34Guest:That was amazing.

00:49:35Guest:Plus, Egypt is the most fantastic place.

00:49:38Guest:Have you ever been?

00:49:39Guest:No.

00:49:39Guest:Oh, my God.

00:49:40Guest:It's like if you go down into those tombs, they've only just been revealed.

00:49:43Guest:So it's like fresh paint on the walls.

00:49:46Guest:Because they finished and they killed them.

00:49:47Guest:But they sealed it.

00:49:49Guest:So it is an extraordinary.

00:49:52Guest:It's like alien world.

00:49:53Guest:And that was what year was that?

00:49:56Guest:And then 90, possibly three.

00:50:02Guest:Oh, wow.

00:50:02Guest:92, perhaps?

00:50:05Guest:I can't imagine what it's like.

00:50:06Guest:I guess you can just go see it.

00:50:07Guest:But I think there's... Certain parts are dangerous still, but I think it's just the most wonderful trip I ever took.

00:50:14Guest:And how far did you go?

00:50:15Guest:Where did it start?

00:50:15Guest:We went all the way up from...

00:50:19Guest:uh the what do you call the cairo yeah and then we got on the boat there and we went all the way up to the first cataract where there's a dam yeah and so then we got on a bus and that's two hours further up you go to abu simbol which is a lake flooded they flooded it but they raised this temple up 300 feet yeah so it's still the sun still hits on the longest day and hits the pharaoh yeah that cave oh wow

00:50:45Guest:And it's, yeah, no, it is an extraordinary place to visit.

00:50:50Guest:What do you make of it, like, mystically?

00:50:52Guest:Well, it's 5,000 years ago.

00:50:54Guest:It's crazy, right?

00:50:55Guest:It's a very long time ago.

00:50:56Guest:And they're building these pyramids.

00:50:58Guest:Yeah.

00:51:00Guest:And... Are you a superstitious, mystical person in any way?

00:51:03Guest:Do you think that they're... Not so much.

00:51:04Guest:Yeah.

00:51:05Guest:No, but I think it's very interesting.

00:51:07Guest:This is our early cultures, you know, and what they're doing.

00:51:11Guest:And they're doing hieroglyphic writing.

00:51:14Guest:We only really recently discovered how to read what they were writing.

00:51:17Guest:And hieroglyphics are back with emojis.

00:51:19Marc:You know, it's funny, full circle.

00:51:20Marc:I noticed that too.

00:51:22Marc:We're going backwards.

00:51:23Marc:Yeah, we're going to be completely primitive but completely equipped with technology.

00:51:29Marc:Yeah, that's what's happening.

00:51:31Guest:There's a thing on the web you can actually translate your email into Egyptian.

00:51:36Guest:And I did it.

00:51:36Guest:I sent it to people.

00:51:38LAUGHTER

00:51:40Marc:It's good, isn't it?

00:51:41Marc:Yeah.

00:51:42Marc:And they were probably like, do I have these on my phone?

00:51:43Marc:How come I don't know what it's saying?

00:51:46Marc:Dear Pharaoh.

00:51:49Marc:Yeah.

00:51:49Guest:So how did the Python deal happen?

00:51:53Guest:The Python deal happened because John and Graham were watching our show.

00:51:58Guest:And John had been offered a show for the BBC, a late night show, on a Sunday night where there wasn't a show.

00:52:04Guest:Yeah.

00:52:05Guest:and he i don't think he wanted to do it with graham alone and he didn't want to be a star himself so he wanted michael palin so he spoke to michael and michael we'd been offered another show and and so we all met together so it's like a a strange mix of the 1948 show meets do not adjust your set yeah and so we said oh well we'll just do this show until our studio is ready to do the other show we're going to do which is nine o'clock on itv for three quarters of an hour

00:52:31Guest:Yeah.

00:52:32Guest:So we never got to that.

00:52:33Guest:Right.

00:52:33Guest:But so it's like they didn't.

00:52:36Guest:And we went to the BBC.

00:52:37Guest:They said, what do you want to do?

00:52:38Guest:We said, I don't know.

00:52:40Guest:Yeah.

00:52:40Guest:So you can have music.

00:52:42Guest:Maybe.

00:52:43Guest:Yeah.

00:52:43Guest:You're going to have film.

00:52:45Guest:Oh, film.

00:52:45Guest:Film's a good idea.

00:52:46Guest:We'll have film.

00:52:46Guest:Yeah.

00:52:47Guest:And they said, oh, just go away and make 13.

00:52:50Guest:That's what they said.

00:52:51Guest:And they didn't care.

00:52:52Marc:They didn't watch us.

00:52:54Marc:How much of their culture, because you watch a lot of Python and it's sort of timeless, but there was a lot going on that was pretty radical.

00:53:03Marc:I mean, was it happening around you or were you guys so insulated?

00:53:06Guest:Well, I mean, I'd been in London, I think, since 65.

00:53:09Guest:So I've been living there.

00:53:10Guest:And there was 66, and then the Beatles, and then there was the Summer of Love.

00:53:14Guest:Did you go see the Beatles?

00:53:15Guest:I never saw the Beatles.

00:53:18Guest:When I was working for Frost, George came on and was doing TM, Transcendental Meditation stuff.

00:53:22Marc:Oh, so at that point.

00:53:23Guest:Is that where you met him?

00:53:25Guest:No, I didn't meet him until about after the Beatles.

00:53:27Guest:I met him in 75 here in Hollywood, the screening of the Holy Grail at the old Directors Guild.

00:53:33Guest:but um you know we weren't really part of rock and roll i mean we sort of but the culture was very permissive creatively right i mean for us in television it was totally right we got to make with nobody there was no time slot there was nothing on television at 10 30. so that's for the start second is it's on late at night nobody's watching and we were in color yeah by three months yeah

00:53:57Guest:Otherwise, it would look really dated.

00:53:58Guest:Right.

00:53:59Guest:And then more importantly, nobody told us what to do.

00:54:02Guest:And we didn't know what to do.

00:54:04Guest:So we just did it anyway.

00:54:05Marc:Yeah.

00:54:06Marc:And you just figured out how did this structure unfold?

00:54:10Marc:How did you decide?

00:54:12Guest:We had lots of conversations.

00:54:13Guest:We couldn't agree on anything.

00:54:14Guest:So we just started to write it.

00:54:15Guest:And then we would just start to put things on a board.

00:54:17Guest:You say, well, we're doing 13 shows.

00:54:19Guest:Well, that's a bit like that one.

00:54:21Guest:So let's move it over here or put things together.

00:54:25Guest:You know, we.

00:54:25Guest:I think the fortuitous thing is we've got Gilliam.

00:54:28Guest:Yeah.

00:54:28Guest:And Gilliam does all these links.

00:54:30Guest:Yeah.

00:54:31Guest:And it looks like that weird, very peculiar, interesting art style.

00:54:35Guest:Yeah.

00:54:35Guest:It frames it all.

00:54:37Guest:Yeah.

00:54:37Guest:It makes it look like it knows it has some shape.

00:54:40Guest:Right.

00:54:40Guest:And I think that's the very fortuitous thing.

00:54:43Marc:And then he would just like, I think the thing that I always remember is that, you know, in between sketches, he would just cut to just beats.

00:54:50Marc:Yeah.

00:54:50Marc:like maybe please I like to bang bricks together you know like just these moments right that would just kind of recur for no reason that there was because in my mind in American comedy there was there's no real tradition of absurdism that that is as defined as southern the stuff you did and I think that that that seems to come from from England if I if

00:55:12Guest:Yes, there was an absurd theater.

00:55:13Guest:There's an absurd tradition and a nonsense tradition from Lear, Edward Lear, you know, going on.

00:55:21Guest:Yeah.

00:55:22Guest:But ours was, I think, because we could.

00:55:26Guest:Right.

00:55:26Guest:We were fucking about.

00:55:27Guest:You know, it's like.

00:55:27Guest:It wasn't intellectual.

00:55:28Marc:It was just.

00:55:29Guest:Well, it was sort of.

00:55:30Guest:I mean, we don't want to be mistaken for a show that says, and now something completely different, and then play a music song.

00:55:37Guest:Right.

00:55:37Guest:So we adapted their very slogan and turned it against them.

00:55:40Guest:Right.

00:55:41Guest:So I think we like to play with our audience.

00:55:44Guest:Yeah.

00:55:45Guest:Yeah.

00:55:45Guest:Well, this will really, this will screw them up.

00:55:48Guest:Yeah.

00:55:48Guest:It's like the three-sided record.

00:55:50Guest:Yeah.

00:55:50Guest:Don't tell them.

00:55:51Guest:Just let them play.

00:55:52Guest:Here, you'll love this side.

00:55:53Guest:Yeah.

00:55:54Guest:What the hell?

00:55:55Guest:People are seriously disturbed by that.

00:55:57Guest:They still haven't recovered from the shock of not finding the record side.

00:56:02Marc:Yeah.

00:56:03Marc:i there's so it's so weird the the sort of things that as i think about it now when i was watching it when i was 13 or whatever that the stuff that sticks in your mind you know the the sam peckinpah film festival that was insane as a kid you know with no fingers and the bleeds right it's uh it's sam peckinpah salad days yeah and there was this innocuous julian slade musical called salad days where they all anyone for

00:56:28Guest:tennis yeah right it's all very johnny all very 20s yeah and then we're sam peckin bar films it yeah the tennis racket's thrown it cuts somebody's head off and there's blood everywhere you know i think we were i think we were i think we just pushed each other

00:56:46Guest:You know, if you're in a gang and nobody else is in charge, you go – and you don't want to do anything that's been done.

00:56:52Guest:Right.

00:56:52Guest:That's the other thing.

00:56:54Guest:So you are – That drives – yeah, that's important.

00:56:56Guest:You're advancing it a little bit because, oh, no, that's a bit obvious.

00:57:00Guest:That's a bit too Ronny's.

00:57:01Guest:We'll sell it to them if the sketch is a bit obvious.

00:57:04Guest:Right.

00:57:04Guest:But I think, you know, just putting in things like Gilliam stands there with a ferret through his head as a Viking says, however, and then you move on.

00:57:12Guest:You go –

00:57:12Guest:What is that?

00:57:15Guest:And you don't need to answer that question.

00:57:16Guest:No.

00:57:17Guest:Right.

00:57:17Guest:But it thrills people at home because they're not seeing people do that.

00:57:21Marc:Well, I think that was like if anything speaks to the time and the freedom you had, the idea of not doing anything that's happened before creatively is profound.

00:57:31Marc:Like, you know, like you guys were able to do it.

00:57:34Guest:I think we had the opportunity and we did use it.

00:57:37Guest:Was it always a fight?

00:57:39No.

00:57:39Guest:but i mean no i mean it's a fight because you want your material on right and we would argue about whether the chair should be a comfy chair or a straight back chair or a hardback chair very seriously yeah but it's because you care about your picture of what may be funny so we did you know we argued entirely all the time yeah about whether material is good enough where it should stop here

00:58:03Guest:And I think that's healthy.

00:58:04Guest:Sure.

00:58:04Guest:That's like, yeah.

00:58:05Guest:And great criticism.

00:58:06Guest:Yeah.

00:58:07Guest:You get great criticism.

00:58:08Guest:People are saying, you know, I thought for the first place that was really funny.

00:58:11Guest:Yeah.

00:58:11Guest:But it stopped being funny.

00:58:12Guest:So let's us, you know, we'd move them around or we just, you know, together we'd all barnstorm the thought.

00:58:19Guest:So it was like by aggressive committee.

00:58:21Guest:Yeah, I mean, it wasn't – there were no emotions involved.

00:58:26Marc:No, right, right.

00:58:27Guest:It was like people were very serious.

00:58:29Marc:The British were better at that.

00:58:30Guest:They're better at no emotions.

00:58:31Guest:They've gone all sort of touchy-feely now.

00:58:33Guest:I blame Diana.

00:58:34Guest:You know, once they started caring about some upper-class git running into a war with an Arab in Paris, you know, you've got to – it's all over for the British.

00:58:43Guest:Yeah.

00:58:43Guest:They're just the same as everybody else.

00:58:46Guest:Bring out your hankies, you know.

00:58:48Guest:That was the end of it.

00:58:49Guest:That was, for me, the end of it.

00:58:50Guest:But I was here.

00:58:51Marc:You've gotten out.

00:58:52Guest:Yes, I've learned.

00:58:53Marc:You saw it coming down.

00:58:54Guest:It's like the tougher world of America where there's no sympathy for people just because they're sick.

00:58:59Guest:Yeah.

00:58:59Guest:Or poor.

00:59:00Marc:Yeah, on any level.

00:59:01Marc:On any level at all.

00:59:03Marc:So there was no emotions involved, but there was competition and just sort of you're constantly hard on yourselves to do the best product, basically.

00:59:12Marc:I believe so.

00:59:13Guest:And that's why John left after the third series, because he thought we were beginning to repeat ourselves.

00:59:18Guest:And he'd had enough.

00:59:19Guest:And he was quite right.

00:59:20Guest:And off he went.

00:59:21Guest:And he did Faulty Towers.

00:59:23Guest:Yeah.

00:59:24Guest:And we did a mini-series, half a series.

00:59:26Guest:And then I left because I said, look, it's not the same without John.

00:59:30Guest:The tensions were good.

00:59:32Guest:So were you upset when John left?

00:59:34Guest:Was the rest of the crew like, why would you do this?

00:59:36Guest:We got a good thing going on?

00:59:37Guest:I think we were disappointed in various levels.

00:59:41Guest:Graham was absolutely desperate because he needed the money.

00:59:43Guest:So we did do a second little miniseries.

00:59:46Guest:It's got some funny bits in.

00:59:48Guest:And then we said, no, stop that.

00:59:51Guest:And then what was good was that John was happy to work with us on movies.

00:59:55Guest:Right.

00:59:55Guest:So then we wrote The Holy Grail.

00:59:57Marc:Did you all write it?

00:59:58Marc:Yeah.

00:59:58Guest:yeah and that was sort of uh that must have been a challenge to you know you had a story and you had to follow it we didn't have a story you did when you look at the first drafts of the holy grail it's set in harrods and people in the ant department and toupee department and and so it's all over the place and then when we came back we said no no stop all that it's got to be the story of king arthur it's got to be medieval he's going to be looking for the grail you know that's so that gave us some kind of shape but

01:00:26Guest:But again, we still had various disparate things happening.

01:00:30Guest:I had to put it into shape when I did Spamalot.

01:00:32Guest:I finally made some sense out of it and put a shape on because it's clearly the seven samurai.

01:00:38Guest:You get the guys together, you round them up, then you go on the quest.

01:00:41Guest:Right.

01:00:42Guest:The movie was in any shape.

01:00:45Guest:You know, he moved it around a lot.

01:00:47Guest:But Graham was consistent.

01:00:48Guest:He moved him through.

01:00:48Guest:Graham was consistent.

01:00:49Guest:And, you know, we understand quest.

01:00:52Guest:Yeah.

01:00:52Marc:That'll do.

01:00:53Marc:It's the plot.

01:00:54Marc:And Graham, like, also, it's interesting how aware you all were of the, you know...

01:01:00Marc:the characters, even if they were only for a minute or two, who would play them?

01:01:04Marc:It seems like there was... How did that sort of happen?

01:01:07Marc:Did you guys cast each other?

01:01:08Marc:Or was it, you know, I made this and I'm doing this?

01:01:11Guest:We always wrote first.

01:01:12Guest:Yeah.

01:01:13Guest:Finish the writing.

01:01:14Guest:Finish the editing.

01:01:14Guest:So nobody could hang on to bits they loved because they were going to be in it.

01:01:17Guest:Yeah.

01:01:18Guest:So then we would cast.

01:01:19Guest:Yeah.

01:01:19Guest:And usually it was pretty obvious.

01:01:21Guest:You know, Cleese played the hard, arrogant, nasty people.

01:01:24Guest:Yeah.

01:01:24Guest:You know.

01:01:24Guest:Yeah.

01:01:26Guest:Terry Jones played the frumpy little women.

01:01:28Guest:Yeah.

01:01:29Guest:Graham played, you know, some slightly bewildered people, you know, like Brian and King Arthur.

01:01:34Guest:Right.

01:01:35Guest:And the rest of it would say Eric or Mike.

01:01:37Guest:Yeah.

01:01:37Guest:That's what I would say.

01:01:38Guest:And so we played those little, you know, middle class, working class people.

01:01:43Guest:We enjoy playing.

01:01:44Guest:The doofuses, the enlightened doofuses.

01:01:46Guest:Eric or Mike.

01:01:47Marc:What was Mike's bit in the grill where they're just playing in the dirt?

01:01:52Guest:Yeah, he's in the mud.

01:01:53Guest:Well, you could have called me.

01:01:56Guest:I didn't know.

01:01:56Guest:A king comes along.

01:01:58Guest:Oh, king, eh?

01:01:58Guest:Very nice.

01:01:59Guest:And who voted for you, then?

01:02:01Guest:You don't vote for kings.

01:02:02Guest:Oh, oh, charming.

01:02:04Guest:How did he become king?

01:02:05Guest:Well, the lady of the leg threw.

01:02:07Guest:Oh, nice.

01:02:08Guest:Moist and Vincent Pons throwing swords.

01:02:10Guest:It's no basis for a system of government.

01:02:13Marc:Right, right.

01:02:14Marc:Yeah, the enlightened guy.

01:02:15Guest:Terrific.

01:02:16Guest:Yeah.

01:02:16Guest:It's wonderful stuff.

01:02:18Guest:It's really abuse.

01:02:19Guest:Oh, did you have fun doing those things?

01:02:21Guest:Writing very much so, I think.

01:02:23Guest:I think the actual filming was always miserable because we were up in Scotland and it was wet and damp and we didn't have enough money.

01:02:30Guest:But it was funny.

01:02:31Guest:And then you guys did.

01:02:33Guest:It was the Ruttles after the grill.

01:02:34Guest:It was, right?

01:02:36Guest:Yeah.

01:02:36Guest:After Python split up, I had my own TV series called Rutland Weekend Television.

01:02:41Guest:Yeah.

01:02:41Guest:And I did it with Neil Innes.

01:02:43Guest:And Neil would do a song or two a week.

01:02:45Guest:Yeah.

01:02:45Guest:And he would send me the tapes.

01:02:47Guest:And he sent me one.

01:02:48Guest:It was so Beatley.

01:02:49Guest:Yeah.

01:02:49Guest:And I suddenly had this thought of the Rutles.

01:02:51Guest:Yeah.

01:02:52Guest:And I had this idea of the guy talking to camera and the camera moving away and him starting to run after it.

01:02:57Guest:And I thought, that's funny.

01:02:59Guest:And so we showed that on Saturday Night Live.

01:03:02Guest:Yeah.

01:03:02Guest:And we had letters to the Rutles.

01:03:05Guest:And Lorne said, what are you doing?

01:03:06Guest:I said, I think I'm doing a documentary on these guys.

01:03:08Guest:He said, we'll do it for NBC.

01:03:10Guest:Oh, and that's right.

01:03:10Marc:I saw that.

01:03:11Marc:We're in it for the, we're only, what was the title of the documentary?

01:03:15Guest:All you need is cash.

01:03:15Marc:All you need is cash.

01:03:17Guest:And I did a sequel called Can't Buy Me Lunch.

01:03:19Guest:Yeah.

01:03:19Guest:Where I went around people like Tom Hanks and Gary Shandling.

01:03:22Guest:Yeah.

01:03:23Guest:And they talked about the influence of the Rutles on their lives.

01:03:25Guest:Yeah.

01:03:26Guest:And Tom Hanks cried.

01:03:27Guest:Yeah.

01:03:27Guest:Oh, that's great.

01:03:28Guest:Just brilliant.

01:03:29Guest:I mean, I would go around in my Mac as the interviewer and interview them.

01:03:33Guest:Yeah.

01:03:33Guest:And there was some brilliant stuff on that.

01:03:36Marc:When did you start to feel along these lines?

01:03:40Marc:Because I think out of all the crew, America and you as a comedic personality seem to embrace...

01:03:48Marc:each other.

01:03:50Marc:And the American comedic community, you seem to be the most active in being the guy from Python who's hanging out with Shandling, hanging out with these people.

01:04:03Marc:When did that start to happen?

01:04:04Marc:It must have been an overwhelming amount of respect that came your way, and it must have been surprising initially.

01:04:10Guest:It was very surprising.

01:04:11Guest:It happened in 74 when we first came and opened the Holy Grail, and we were trapped in a theater by 2,000 people.

01:04:17Guest:Yeah.

01:04:18Guest:Coming with trying to get that coconut signed.

01:04:20Guest:Yeah.

01:04:20Guest:And then we met Belushi and people, Ackroyd.

01:04:24Guest:What is 76?

01:04:24Guest:75, 76.

01:04:25Guest:And then I think I first did 76.

01:04:28Guest:I first did SNL.

01:04:30Guest:I hosted it.

01:04:31Guest:Like second season?

01:04:32Guest:Second season, second show.

01:04:34Guest:Oh, wow.

01:04:35Guest:And, you know, I love comedy people.

01:04:38Guest:So it was fascinating to be in their world.

01:04:41Guest:I think I hosted it four times in the 70s.

01:04:43Marc:And what was the, did it seem, the writing process there compared to Python or whatever?

01:04:50Marc:The drug problem.

01:04:52Guest:They would work on a Tuesday night and they'd smoke enormous amounts of marijuana in their offices.

01:04:58Guest:The idea that you'd have a joint at the BBC is unheard of.

01:05:01Guest:But they had all these offices barricaded off and they'd write all night.

01:05:05Guest:And it was completely different than they'd never... Because ours is a writer's commune.

01:05:10Guest:The writers were in charge.

01:05:11Guest:The writers did everything.

01:05:12Guest:But theirs is much more of a performer's show.

01:05:15Guest:Right.

01:05:16Guest:And they would build the sets just on a pitch.

01:05:20Guest:And they would never have time to rewrite.

01:05:23Guest:And you never had time to rehearse or learn it.

01:05:25Guest:You just read it off cards.

01:05:27Guest:Because we would rehearse for five days, our Python shows.

01:05:30Guest:So we were word perfect.

01:05:31Marc:And you were also...

01:05:32Guest:shooting on film weren't you a lot of the time we would go and shoot for for all of the series on film there were inserts throughout yeah we had to write the whole lot first yeah you can't just kind of you know do that the day after the plan very carefully planned um whereas you know um saturday night was live you know it was this live vibe in the new york and you know quite different and how who did you sort of gravitate towards when you like who'd you hang out with

01:05:59Guest:Oh, well, I love Gilda.

01:06:00Marc:Yeah.

01:06:00Guest:And I liked Aykroyd very much.

01:06:02Guest:He was the only one I thought could actually have been in Python because he was a good writer and a great performer.

01:06:06Guest:Yeah.

01:06:07Guest:And he was very like what we did, which is writing and performing.

01:06:10Guest:Yeah.

01:06:11Guest:And then, you know, Bill Murray came in.

01:06:14Guest:That's so funny.

01:06:15Guest:I hung with Chevy, who was hurt because he'd been Gerald Ford and was in bed.

01:06:19Guest:Oh, really?

01:06:21Marc:Yeah, I mean...

01:06:21Guest:You know, New York is great.

01:06:23Guest:I mean, it was just wonderful to, I mean, I've been through London for 10 years.

01:06:27Marc:New York was a nice place to go.

01:06:28Marc:But I must have, I have to assume that they were like, just like, you know, when you got here, when Python got here, they're like, it was a completely new thing and completely different than anything that was happening in America.

01:06:38Marc:And it just sort of like, this is, they were kind of fans when we first went along to the show.

01:06:43Guest:They were kind of like gobsmacked because it had just come on PBS as well as the movie opened.

01:06:48Guest:So it was a perfect storm in New York.

01:06:50Guest:Oh, it's great.

01:06:51Guest:Yeah.

01:06:51Guest:And where'd you meet Robin Williams?

01:06:53Guest:I met Robin Williams in England, in London, in a nightclub.

01:06:57Guest:It's called a comic strip.

01:06:59Guest:It was the top of a strip club in 1980.

01:07:02Guest:And he'd been filming Popeye in Malta.

01:07:05Guest:And somebody said, you've got to see this.

01:07:06Guest:You've got to see this guy.

01:07:07Marc:You've got to meet him.

01:07:08Marc:You went to see him perform first.

01:07:09Guest:I went to see him perform, and he just killed, and then we met, and then we went out to dinner, and, you know, it was like forever.

01:07:16Marc:And he moved in.

01:07:16Guest:Yeah, no, no, I mean, I loved him.

01:07:18Guest:I mean, you just, you can't believe anybody could be that quick.

01:07:21Marc:Yeah, it was a real loss, you know, but I guess, what do you know?

01:07:25Marc:I don't want to bring the whole interview down, but I miss him.

01:07:28Marc:Well, he had a brain disease.

01:07:29Marc:Yeah, I know, yeah.

01:07:30Marc:It was a body's disease.

01:07:31Marc:It's terrible.

01:07:31Marc:Yeah.

01:07:31Guest:I wondered, because at first when I knew him, I'd just follow him around all the nightclubs.

01:07:35Marc:Yeah.

01:07:35Guest:He and me would go out.

01:07:36Guest:Yeah.

01:07:36Guest:And he'd have enormous amounts of cocaine and go on the road, keep going on until about four in the morning.

01:07:40Guest:Yeah.

01:07:41Guest:When finally he would seize up and no longer be funny.

01:07:43Guest:Yeah.

01:07:44Guest:Because of the dreaded white powder.

01:07:45Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:07:46Guest:I'm like, oh, we can go to bed now.

01:07:49Guest:But I wondered if eventually, because I'm observing people have these brain problems, whether that in fact...

01:07:55Marc:Helped it or caused it?

01:07:57Marc:Yes.

01:07:58Guest:I think we will find out that it's not very good for you.

01:08:01Marc:I think that's true.

01:08:02Marc:I tend to think that with MS as well.

01:08:06Marc:There are these neurological problems that come from MS.

01:08:08Guest:I'm sure it's not good.

01:08:10Guest:No matter what, even if it's just cocaine, all else is chopped into it.

01:08:13Guest:You know what I mean?

01:08:15Guest:It's going straight into your brain.

01:08:16Marc:It's not like it's FDA approved.

01:08:18Marc:Yeah.

01:08:19Marc:Not yet.

01:08:20Guest:I mean, this is California.

01:08:21Guest:You never know.

01:08:23Guest:You were never a drug guy.

01:08:25Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:08:26Guest:Are you kidding?

01:08:27Guest:I'm English.

01:08:28Guest:I'll take anything that's going.

01:08:29Guest:You know what I mean?

01:08:31Guest:But I couldn't afford what he could afford.

01:08:34Guest:Right.

01:08:36Marc:So after Gilliam went on to do the amazing movies, you did a lot of those movies with him, acted in a couple, right?

01:08:44Marc:One.

01:08:45Marc:Just one.

01:08:45Marc:Munchausen, yeah.

01:08:46Marc:Munchausen.

01:08:47Marc:Oh, my God, yeah.

01:08:47Marc:I don't know how he put that shit together.

01:08:49Guest:Oh, why?

01:08:50Guest:Yeah.

01:08:51Guest:It was six months of hell.

01:08:53Guest:I said I'd rather go back to boarding school than be back on that movie.

01:08:56Guest:Complete chaos.

01:08:57Guest:But he is wonderful.

01:08:59Guest:I love him.

01:08:59Guest:But he only is happy when there's chaos.

01:09:02Guest:Oh, he's one of those guys?

01:09:03Guest:Oh, totally.

01:09:04Guest:It's like the president.

01:09:04Guest:He's an animator.

01:09:05Guest:Yeah.

01:09:05Guest:Do you trust Walt Disney?

01:09:07Guest:right no they're moving bits and pieces around in their big pictures and they have complete control of it so if you're an actor yeah on a show you're just a bit in the scene right right oh right so it doesn't matter if you're dangling from something no yeah what do you mean you fell off don't fall off i haven't got the shot yet and where did you find the time i mean this is what your third book you wrote but this one's a memoir but you've written several books

01:09:31Guest:Yeah, I wrote a chore diary called The Greedy Bastard Diary in about 2003 because I was on the road.

01:09:37Guest:But this is my autobiography because I'm getting to that age where you go, well, you better get it down now or you won't remember anything.

01:09:46Guest:And that's an issue.

01:09:49Guest:You don't seem to be having any of those issues.

01:09:51Guest:Well, but Jones is gone.

01:09:52Guest:Yeah.

01:09:53Marc:Mentally.

01:09:54Guest:Yeah.

01:09:54Guest:You can't speak.

01:09:55Guest:And that's really sad.

01:09:56Guest:And so, you know, so I just anyway, it's the 50th anniversary next year of Python.

01:10:01Guest:Yeah.

01:10:01Guest:So I thought they're going to ask us questions.

01:10:03Guest:I better get my thoughts down.

01:10:06Guest:So, yeah.

01:10:06Guest:And I thought this is a good time to reflect on the eve of that.

01:10:10Guest:And so I went off to France and I wrote and wrote.

01:10:13Guest:It's very good.

01:10:15Guest:I mean, I'm 75.

01:10:16Guest:It's a very good stage to look back at your life and think, what the fuck happened?

01:10:20Guest:Look at this.

01:10:21Guest:How weird is that?

01:10:22Guest:And I was saying to my wife today, the first 25 years were preparing.

01:10:27Guest:And then we did Python when I was 26.

01:10:29Guest:And for 25 years, we did all of that.

01:10:31Guest:The last 25 years, I came to America.

01:10:34Guest:I've been in America.

01:10:35Guest:It's like three different portions of your life are quite different.

01:10:38Marc:Yeah, and the 25 in America, you sort of adjusted to figuring out how to maintain your stature as a humorist and also function in show business very successfully.

01:10:50Guest:Yeah, I mean, it was kind of strange to be an immigrant at 50.

01:10:54Guest:I mean, what am I going to do?

01:10:55Guest:But it was better than staying in England where they want to pigeonhole you.

01:10:59Guest:Right.

01:10:59Guest:And then finally, we got to make Spamalot, which is really interesting.

01:11:03Marc:Before we go on to that, in writing, because I've written a bit myself, did you find yourself in the process of writing, discovering memories and being moved by... Writing the book?

01:11:16Marc:Yeah.

01:11:16Marc:Yes.

01:11:17Marc:It's kind of crazy, right?

01:11:18Guest:I didn't.

01:11:19Guest:Go to a publisher.

01:11:21Guest:I thought, I'm going to write the book for me.

01:11:23Guest:I want to know what I think and what I feel or what my life feels like to me.

01:11:28Guest:And then I'll sell it afterwards if they want it.

01:11:32Guest:But I don't want to find I owe a book to somebody.

01:11:35Marc:Or have an editor on you.

01:11:37Guest:Before, I knew what I wanted.

01:11:39Marc:Yeah.

01:11:40Marc:And what were some of the things like in terms of looking back at your whole life, both for, you know, in darkness and light and whatever in history, you know, what were some of the things where you were like, oh, my God, I really hadn't seen it that way.

01:11:52Guest:I think what it became for me, I had to try and discover the subject of the book.

01:11:56Guest:And what it became for me, the subject of the book was that generation.

01:11:59Guest:How odd that generation was coming out of war.

01:12:03Guest:I say always, when I was born, Hitler was trying to kill me.

01:12:06Guest:Yeah.

01:12:06Guest:And now my name's on Mars.

01:12:08Guest:Yeah.

01:12:08Guest:Because it's on Curiosity, the rover.

01:12:10Guest:Yeah.

01:12:10Guest:And that's kind of, whoa, excuse me?

01:12:12Guest:Yeah.

01:12:12Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:12:14Guest:Yeah.

01:12:14Guest:That's extraordinary because, you know, that arc is...

01:12:18Guest:is an amazing time.

01:12:20Guest:Yeah.

01:12:20Guest:And during which time our science has exploded, our knowledge of science, of the universe, and what we've been able to do, people bring to the moon.

01:12:27Guest:Yeah.

01:12:28Guest:You know, I mean, this is an extraordinary time.

01:12:31Guest:It's one of the benefits of peace.

01:12:33Marc:Yeah.

01:12:33Marc:Right.

01:12:34Marc:And now it isn't sort of interesting that with all those advances and with that sort of hindsight, you know, from a real world war that, you know, we are now entering, you know, these cultural tribalism again and all this insanity that the human animal, you know, is so significantly flawed that progress is not, you know, what everybody sees as a positive thing.

01:12:58Guest:Yeah, I think it's sad.

01:12:59Guest:People don't know what war is.

01:13:01Guest:You see, I joke about the younger generation, they think of disasters when they lose the internet connection.

01:13:07Guest:Some people are trying to bomb you.

01:13:08Guest:But war is a really serious thing, and it goes on a lot on the planet.

01:13:12Guest:Always.

01:13:13Guest:You know, now we're getting people who divide us because for their own power.

01:13:18Marc:And that's awful.

01:13:20Marc:But isn't it surprising?

01:13:21Marc:Because, I mean, even like you don't talk about class much in America.

01:13:24Marc:But I guess, you know, when I really think about history, I mean, it's not surprising how stupid and easily led people are.

01:13:33Yeah.

01:13:34Guest:Well, except they're fighting back.

01:13:36Guest:You see, television is very powerful and people can talk and the Internet is very powerful and they can fight back.

01:13:44Guest:I mean, who knew that it would be possible to subvert America by these idiotic bloody Russian KGB?

01:13:49Guest:Who knew they were?

01:13:50Guest:They're not that smart.

01:13:51Guest:And also, they don't even have democracy, so it serves them kind of right.

01:13:57Guest:And they will lose because it's better off to be here than there.

01:14:02Marc:No matter what.

01:14:03Guest:Yeah, so go fuck yourselves.

01:14:04Marc:And did you also think about how the media landscape was much more...

01:14:12Marc:intimate and smaller back when you were coming up that you could get all eyes upon you in a way over time.

01:14:19Marc:And now it's so fragmented that I wonder, it's hard to know how anybody becomes successful.

01:14:24Marc:It's usually not because of their creativity necessarily.

01:14:28Guest:Yeah, I mean, there's many more famous people.

01:14:30Guest:And the trouble is that America's gone from the pursuit of happiness to the pursuit of fame and money.

01:14:36Guest:And they're not the same things at all.

01:14:39Marc:That's true.

01:14:40Marc:And you seem to be pretty happy.

01:14:42Guest:Me?

01:14:42Marc:Yeah.

01:14:42Guest:Yeah, I'm very happy.

01:14:44Guest:Yeah.

01:14:44Guest:But I came and pursued happiness in America.

01:14:47Marc:Yeah.

01:14:47Marc:And I found it.

01:14:48Marc:I caught it.

01:14:49Marc:Is it a choice, though, or do you battle anything?

01:14:52Marc:Are there days where you're like, ugh?

01:14:55Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:14:56Guest:I mean, you know, but it is, I mean, I always look on the bright side.

01:15:01Guest:It's not a bad motto.

01:15:03Guest:No.

01:15:03Guest:But, you know, I came here.

01:15:06Guest:I settled down here.

01:15:07Guest:I lived here.

01:15:08Guest:I put a child through school.

01:15:09Guest:I had a normal life.

01:15:10Guest:How old's your kid?

01:15:11Guest:She's now 28.

01:15:13Guest:But, you know, she went to college, and I loved all that.

01:15:15Guest:I loved taking a kid to school.

01:15:16Guest:Your wife's American?

01:15:17Guest:Mine's from Chicago.

01:15:19Guest:She's American.

01:15:20Guest:Spend time in Chicago?

01:15:21Guest:Yeah.

01:15:22Guest:It's great, right?

01:15:23Marc:It's a great city.

01:15:24Guest:It's a wonderful town.

01:15:24Marc:It's a great town.

01:15:25Guest:We opened Spamalot there.

01:15:26Guest:Oh, you did?

01:15:27Guest:Yeah.

01:15:27Guest:I picked it.

01:15:28Guest:They wanted to open it in Boston and said, no bloody way.

01:15:31Guest:Chicago, the only place, because they don't give a thing about it.

01:15:34Guest:New York.

01:15:34Guest:You can say that.

01:15:36Guest:They don't care.

01:15:37Guest:Yeah.

01:15:38Guest:But in Boston, they have a slight chip on their shoulder about New York, and they're always looking over their shoulder.

01:15:42Guest:Yeah.

01:15:43Guest:But in Chicago, no.

01:15:44Guest:These are the people who don't wear shirts in the winter.

01:15:46Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:15:47Guest:And they all smoke still.

01:15:48Guest:Yeah.

01:15:49Marc:Well, that's like the French.

01:15:50Marc:Yeah.

01:15:50Marc:Nobody told the French.

01:15:52Marc:And also they have a pretty, a pretty decent theater world in Chicago.

01:15:56Marc:Totally.

01:15:56Marc:Yeah.

01:15:57Guest:A very good theater world.

01:15:58Guest:And they're just very funny people.

01:16:00Marc:Did you, did you assume that, you know, when you, you know, what was the impetus?

01:16:05Marc:Like when you said, I'm going to make spam a lot, you know, what, what was, where did the idea come from?

01:16:10Guest:Well, we'd been looking.

01:16:11Guest:John Dupre and I had written a musical about cricket, which we'd done on radio for.

01:16:17Guest:And we were looking for a theme and a subject.

01:16:20Guest:And we were here.

01:16:21Guest:And I suddenly thought, well, I see the grail is a pretty amazing subject because it's like...

01:16:28Guest:It's a comic musical.

01:16:29Guest:It's a bit like the Ring of the Nibelones.

01:16:31Guest:It's the Arthurian legend.

01:16:33Guest:You can take the large and then mock it as the small.

01:16:36Guest:And also, because we had no horses, you can actually do it on stage.

01:16:41Guest:And because it's sketchy, it keeps stopping and feels like it should be a song.

01:16:46Guest:Yeah.

01:16:47Guest:I'm not dead yet.

01:16:49Guest:It's always been a song, surely.

01:16:51Guest:We just never got to write it until the musical.

01:16:53Marc:Yeah, right.

01:16:54Marc:Yeah, and in terms of writing songs, at the beginning of the book you talk about Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, and I had no idea that it had been recorded by so many different artists and that it is sort of in the rotation of songs that people do at weddings and do at funerals.

01:17:11Marc:Funerals, more largely, yes.

01:17:12Marc:And that's true.

01:17:13Marc:Number one at funerals.

01:17:14Guest:It's a true fact.

01:17:15Guest:It's the number one song at funerals in the UK.

01:17:17Guest:Which is kind of cute.

01:17:19Guest:I like that.

01:17:19Guest:Don't you?

01:17:20Marc:Yeah, it's amazing.

01:17:21Guest:Yeah, they don't pay.

01:17:24Marc:No, I know.

01:17:24Marc:It's sort of like happy birthday.

01:17:26Marc:How are you going to monitor?

01:17:27Guest:Oh, they pay happy birthday.

01:17:28Marc:No, I don't think so anymore.

01:17:29Marc:I think it got released into public domain recently.

01:17:32Marc:They're not charging parties.

01:17:34Marc:There's no one making rounds.

01:17:35Guest:It was seriously considered as the alternative national anthem in England.

01:17:39Guest:And so they sing it whenever they're losing, which is always great.

01:17:42Guest:And in fact, when the English were playing the Germans soccer, football, and the Germans were losing in Berlin, whole of the German stadium sang, always look on the bright side of life in English.

01:17:54Guest:Oh, that's amazing.

01:17:54Guest:Isn't that great?

01:17:55Guest:Yeah.

01:17:56Guest:I love that.

01:17:56Guest:And people say, Germans have no sense of humor.

01:17:59Guest:Rubbish.

01:18:00Guest:Bullshit.

01:18:00Guest:Listen, the English wouldn't have done that.

01:18:02Marc:Yeah, exactly.

01:18:04Marc:You had a pretty long relationship with George Harrison.

01:18:06Marc:Yeah.

01:18:07Marc:Now, the Beatles thing is sort of, you know, what was your experience like knowing a Beatle?

01:18:14Marc:Because when I interviewed Paul, I had very weird mixed feelings because there's nothing quite like the Beatles.

01:18:22Marc:I said to him, I think we know Beatles songs prenatally for some reason.

01:18:28Marc:There's a groove in our brains that's just waiting for them to be put in.

01:18:32Guest:And they were our generation, so we knew which album came next.

01:18:35Guest:And when it came, we'd run down and get the next Beatle album.

01:18:37Guest:And that changed the culture completely.

01:18:39Guest:Before then, people wouldn't have bought albums of rock and roll.

01:18:43Guest:So they were an extraordinary group, really creative.

01:18:50Guest:Were you friends with all of them?

01:18:51Guest:I know Ringo a little now.

01:18:54Guest:I see him quite a bit.

01:18:55Guest:I never met John.

01:18:56Guest:I've seen Paul a lot more recently, and he's awfully nice.

01:19:03Guest:He's really sweet.

01:19:04Guest:I mean, memorials and things, you say, come on, you need a hug.

01:19:08Guest:He's so wonderfully down to earth and such a genius songwriter.

01:19:12Guest:He's funny, too.

01:19:12Guest:He's very quick.

01:19:13Guest:Well, that was the secret to the Beatles.

01:19:14Guest:They were funny.

01:19:15Guest:Yeah.

01:19:15Guest:When they came to America, everybody knew Ringo's name because he was funny.

01:19:19Guest:Right.

01:19:19Guest:He had a funny nose, funny haircut, and he was funny.

01:19:22Guest:Yeah.

01:19:22Guest:And that's what made the Beatles, I think, when they first hit America.

01:19:25Marc:Yeah.

01:19:26Guest:All those press conferences.

01:19:27Guest:Sure, sure.

01:19:27Guest:He's funny.

01:19:28Marc:yeah yeah you sing a lot they were hilarious and i very identifiable personalities very quickly they you know and they you know and they knew how to be themselves you know as opposed to be cryptic and weird and you know they've been on the road since they were 14. you know so yeah so they they done it and they they

01:19:46Guest:And then, you know, it got very heavy for them and the split-ups.

01:19:50Guest:And, you know, so it was interesting for me because I sort of studied it.

01:19:54Guest:Yeah.

01:19:55Guest:You know, to write the Ruttles.

01:19:56Guest:Yeah.

01:19:56Guest:I had to learn everything about them and write them.

01:19:58Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:19:59Guest:I even played Paul.

01:20:00Guest:Yeah, exactly.

01:20:01Guest:And that was quite interesting because Linda was very proud of that.

01:20:05Guest:She loved it.

01:20:06Guest:Oh, she did.

01:20:06Marc:She got a kick out of it.

01:20:07Guest:Paul was a little bit less, you know, keen.

01:20:09Guest:Right, right.

01:20:10Guest:But he's now nice about it.

01:20:13Marc:Yeah.

01:20:14Marc:Yeah.

01:20:14Marc:And George seemed to be a very spiritual guy all the way till, you know, the end, huh?

01:20:18Guest:Well, no, George was always those two, both very naughty, the naughtiest boy in the room and the most spiritual boy in the room, too.

01:20:25Guest:He was both.

01:20:25Guest:Yeah.

01:20:27Guest:But he encouraged the Ruttles.

01:20:29Guest:I mean, he was behind it.

01:20:30Guest:He showed me all sorts of footage.

01:20:31Guest:Oh, he did?

01:20:32Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:20:32Guest:He showed me a film called The Long and Winding Road, which they could never agree to release because they couldn't agree...

01:20:40Guest:which bits to cut.

01:20:42Guest:They hated, some of them all hated at some bit or another, especially at the end, you know, the Let It Be tapes.

01:20:48Marc:So it was really about the coming apart of the band?

01:20:51Guest:Yeah, it was, but it never got released.

01:20:53Guest:So my film was a sort of parody of a film that never got released.

01:20:57Guest:And then they used all that material eventually when they did the 10-part anthology at the end of the 90s.

01:21:02Guest:Yeah.

01:21:02Marc:And with your group, with your band, you guys toured a few years ago.

01:21:09Marc:And was that... Are you still in touch with Mike?

01:21:14Marc:Yeah.

01:21:15Marc:And John and you are okay?

01:21:16Marc:Yeah.

01:21:17Guest:We went on the roads for three tours, John and I, like two years ago.

01:21:20Guest:It was a wonderful time.

01:21:23Guest:Yeah, I mean...

01:21:24Guest:We didn't tour.

01:21:25Guest:We did a final farewell show at the O2 in London in 2014.

01:21:30Guest:Yeah.

01:21:31Guest:And it was just in time because Jonesy was just losing his memory.

01:21:35Guest:And it was a final performance.

01:21:37Guest:We did 10 shows at O2, 18,000 people a night sold out.

01:21:41Guest:Yeah.

01:21:42Guest:And it was good fun.

01:21:43Guest:Yeah.

01:21:43Guest:It was nice.

01:21:44Guest:Yeah.

01:21:45Guest:And we meet because we have a business.

01:21:47Guest:You know, we're business in common.

01:21:48Guest:We have to deal with business a bit.

01:21:50Guest:Oh, you do?

01:21:51Guest:Yeah.

01:21:51Guest:But it's only like once a year we'll have to deal with it.

01:21:54Marc:Sort out some numbers?

01:21:56Guest:Well, it's like, what are we going to do?

01:21:57Guest:And everybody says, no, I don't want to do anything.

01:21:59Guest:All right, well, let's do that then.

01:22:01Marc:Is it surprising to you that Michael took a sort of non-comedic route in a way?

01:22:08Guest:I think it's a sadness to me because he was a comedian that got away.

01:22:14Guest:And even now when he comes to visit me sometimes here, you'll look rather wistful.

01:22:18Guest:Yeah.

01:22:18Guest:Oh, really?

01:22:19Guest:Yeah, because he's one of the funniest performers.

01:22:21Guest:And he's such a funny writer.

01:22:23Guest:Yeah.

01:22:24Guest:But, you know, he's made his life as this sort of national treasure.

01:22:27Guest:Yeah.

01:22:28Guest:And he's famous.

01:22:30Guest:He'll be Sir Michael any minute.

01:22:31Guest:Oh, yeah?

01:22:32Guest:I hope they give it to him next year.

01:22:33Guest:Yeah.

01:22:33Guest:Are you Sir or you're Sir?

01:22:34Guest:No.

01:22:35Guest:Not yet?

01:22:35Guest:No, no, no.

01:22:36Guest:Why will he get it before you?

01:22:37Guest:Well, he's already a CBE.

01:22:39Guest:He's worked his way up.

01:22:40Guest:He was an OBE, then CBE.

01:22:42Guest:You know, you have to be polite.

01:22:46Guest:I'm not polite.

01:22:47Guest:No, there's a line of progression.

01:22:49Guest:In fact, Prince Charles asked me to be his jester one night in Scotland at Billy Connolly's because I was making him laugh.

01:22:56Guest:And I said, why would I want a fucking awful job like that?

01:23:00Guest:Was that even a job anymore?

01:23:02Guest:No, of course it's not.

01:23:03Guest:But I mean...

01:23:03Guest:He laughed his ass off.

01:23:04Guest:I said, why would I want a fucking awful job like that?

01:23:06Guest:Yeah.

01:23:07Guest:Making you be your jester.

01:23:08Guest:Give me a break.

01:23:10Guest:You always hear about that, that it was a job at one time.

01:23:14Guest:But it's an important job because if Trump had a jester, he would be much healthier.

01:23:18Guest:I don't think he has a sense of humor, really.

01:23:20Guest:No, he doesn't.

01:23:20Guest:But the point is the jester is the ones that say the things you're not allowed to say.

01:23:23Guest:Exactly.

01:23:24Guest:They'll get your head cut off if you're an advisor.

01:23:26Guest:Right.

01:23:26Guest:But if you're a jester.

01:23:27Guest:Yeah.

01:23:28Guest:And that's why it's so important in Shakespeare.

01:23:29Guest:You see that the role of the jester is to tell Henry VIII.

01:23:34Guest:You go and tell him.

01:23:35Guest:Yeah.

01:23:36Guest:Oh, no.

01:23:36Guest:We'll get the jester to tell him.

01:23:37Guest:Right.

01:23:38Guest:Yeah.

01:23:39Guest:To tell the truth to the power.

01:23:41Marc:That's what comedy is.

01:23:42Marc:Yeah, for sure.

01:23:43Marc:Yeah, no, Trump could not, his ego could not handle a jester.

01:23:47Marc:So, you know, it's got to be on the, it's on the shoulders of Colbert and Marr.

01:23:52Marc:That's true, except he doesn't listen to them.

01:23:54Marc:Yeah, no.

01:23:55Guest:They're mocking him.

01:23:56Marc:Some of them get through.

01:23:57Marc:Baldwin got through.

01:23:58Marc:I think Sessions is his jester.

01:24:00Marc:Oh, boy.

01:24:01Marc:He looks like a jester, doesn't he?

01:24:03Marc:He does, yeah, yeah.

01:24:04Marc:They're all evil, though.

01:24:05Marc:It's just a bunch of evil clowns.

01:24:08Guest:Isn't it awful?

01:24:09Guest:I think America's going to win.

01:24:10Guest:See, I have this firm belief in America because America saved us in 1943 when the war came over.

01:24:17Marc:Seems like he might let the Russians just take over Europe if they want right now, though.

01:24:20Guest:Well, that's what he wants, and that's what Putin wants.

01:24:23Guest:But I think America will win and throw him out.

01:24:26Guest:I think American institutions and Americans are true believers in freedom and liberty and will not put up with this.

01:24:33Guest:Yeah, I hope you're... On either side of the aisle.

01:24:35Guest:Yeah.

01:24:35Guest:You know, all the FBI people.

01:24:38Guest:They're Republicans.

01:24:39Marc:The people he accuses of getting are all...

01:24:41Marc:So I'll tell you what we're seeing.

01:24:43Marc:I think you could see it in England, too, is that these politicians, you know, really, most of them stand for nothing but but proximity to power and honoring business interests.

01:24:54Marc:And it's sort of interesting how transparently craven this lot is.

01:24:59Guest:I think the Russians have things on them.

01:25:02Guest:All of them?

01:25:03Guest:Well, they didn't just tap the Democratic Party.

01:25:05Marc:I agree with that.

01:25:07Guest:So I think Lindsey Graham, you can explain exactly that they have things on all of them.

01:25:12Marc:I think that's true.

01:25:13Guest:Lindsey Graham, Paul Ryan.

01:25:15Guest:I think they've got big, big things on them.

01:25:19Guest:And what do you make of Brexit?

01:25:21Guest:I think it's the same thing.

01:25:23Guest:The Russians were behind it.

01:25:26Guest:Foul money came in and supported it.

01:25:29Guest:It's to disrupt Europe, which is what Putin's whole thing is.

01:25:33Guest:Destabilize.

01:25:34Guest:Maybe he can destabilize NATO at the same time.

01:25:36Guest:Right.

01:25:38Guest:It was corrupt.

01:25:40Guest:Yeah.

01:25:41Guest:I wasn't allowed to vote, but I think it's a disaster.

01:25:45Guest:Why weren't you allowed to vote?

01:25:46Guest:Because I don't have a house in England.

01:25:49Guest:Oh, but you're still a citizen.

01:25:50Guest:I'm still a citizen.

01:25:51Guest:I can't vote in elections.

01:25:52Guest:I can't vote.

01:25:53Guest:I pay taxes.

01:25:54Guest:But anyway.

01:25:56Guest:Has the feeling changed over there?

01:25:57Guest:Have you been there?

01:25:58Guest:Well, don't forget London was always very much Remain.

01:26:01Guest:London's the city with the most to lose.

01:26:02Guest:The city's having to flee because you can't run business operations.

01:26:07Guest:We were winning that game.

01:26:09Marc:Yeah.

01:26:09Guest:It's a totally insane policy.

01:26:10Marc:Yeah.

01:26:11Marc:Oh, boy.

01:26:12Marc:We're going to see what's going to happen.

01:26:14Marc:That's for sure.

01:26:15Marc:Maybe.

01:26:16Guest:I'll be in my nursing home, you know.

01:26:22Marc:Ask me my gin martini, would you?

01:26:25Marc:You seem to have a pretty good attitude about mortality.

01:26:29Guest:Yeah.

01:26:29Guest:Well, that's from George.

01:26:30Guest:Yeah.

01:26:31Guest:Yeah.

01:26:31Guest:He was very, very strong.

01:26:32Guest:Remember, you're going to die.

01:26:33Guest:All this is going to go away.

01:26:34Guest:You can't.

01:26:35Guest:He was the most famous person group in the world.

01:26:37Guest:Yeah.

01:26:38Guest:And he realized that it was all going to go away.

01:26:41Guest:Yeah.

01:26:41Guest:And that's why, you know, his influence was both interesting and spiritual.

01:26:46Guest:I mean, he brought the whole Indian thing into the 60s.

01:26:49Guest:Sure.

01:26:49Guest:Single handedly.

01:26:50Guest:Yeah.

01:26:50Guest:That's a guitarist from Liverpool.

01:26:52Guest:And were you there at the end?

01:26:55Guest:Of his death?

01:26:55Marc:Yeah.

01:26:55Guest:Yeah, just after.

01:26:57Guest:I mean, I was visiting him during the whole time.

01:27:00Marc:And how was his disposition about it?

01:27:03Marc:Was he still fairly... Very comfortable.

01:27:06Guest:Really?

01:27:06Guest:Yes.

01:27:06Guest:He felt that he was going to escape the pain of rebirth.

01:27:12Guest:And so he was very comfortable with the whole process of dying.

01:27:15Guest:And there were Indian things there, music.

01:27:18Guest:And so I'm going, oh, I don't mind being reborn.

01:27:22Guest:Yeah.

01:27:22Guest:I'll put my name down for that one, would you?

01:27:28Guest:So it was the only thing we ever disagreed on.

01:27:30Guest:He accepted the fact that I didn't believe in anything.

01:27:32Guest:And he had been a Catholic, and then he was a Hindu.

01:27:36Guest:But he was always very generous spiritually.

01:27:40Guest:And that religion laughs at things a lot.

01:27:42Guest:Like the Dalai Lama laughs all the time.

01:27:44Marc:Sure, yeah.

01:27:45Marc:It's a very kind of...

01:27:48Marc:the kind of uh nothing i i don't i don't quite understand it but it seems to be the most reasonable uh spiritual practice in terms of acceptance realizing we're funny yeah you know yeah that's the best thing outside of ourselves we're just funny it may be tragic to us but it's funny to other people that's true yeah yeah yeah and you have to have a sense of humor we'd all be so depressed we won't want to live

01:28:11Guest:It's a very, I think it's a very useful, positive thing.

01:28:16Marc:Yeah.

01:28:17Marc:When there's very little hope, at least there's relief.

01:28:22Guest:But at least there's no war.

01:28:23Guest:People go, oh, there's very little hope.

01:28:24Guest:Look around.

01:28:25Guest:They've got, you know, 52 channels of television.

01:28:28Guest:52?

01:28:28Guest:900?

01:28:28Guest:Yeah, exactly.

01:28:30Guest:On my phone, I can't.

01:28:31Guest:Yeah, exactly.

01:28:32Guest:But the point is, nobody's bombing you yet.

01:28:35Guest:Right.

01:28:35Guest:And that, you know, that's the important thing.

01:28:37Marc:Oh yeah.

01:28:38Marc:Yeah.

01:28:38Marc:Yet in that.

01:28:39Marc:And I hope it stays that way.

01:28:40Marc:It was a great talking to you, man.

01:28:42Marc:You too.

01:28:42Marc:Thanks.

01:28:43Marc:Thank you.

01:28:49Marc:How was that?

01:28:49Marc:That was great.

01:28:50Marc:That was, I, I'm so glad I got to talk to, to Eric idol and to John Cleese.

01:28:56Marc:It was, you know, I, I'm, I'm living a life people and it's, it's pretty, pretty fucking amazing.

01:29:04Marc:even with sweaty Mark running around the streets of lower Manhattan he can stay there he can stay there for eternity but Mark right now is living an amazing life and I'm grateful for that don't forget to grab a paperback copy of Waiting for the Punch wherever you get books or at markmarinbook.com and I'll let you know what happens on set if I can within reason within the limitations of what I'm allowed to talk about okay okay

01:29:34Marc:Boomer lives!