Michael Palin

Michael Palin0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Disc's Archive. For rights' reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen seventy nine, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:32

Our castaway this week is a writer and performer who is star of Monty Python and Ripping Yarns Michael Palin.

Presenter0:40

Michael, are you a gregarious man? Well, I'm half and half. I mean, I write in groups. Two or six, minimum of two. But on the other hand, I do like to get away from people. So you now here and there.

Michael Palin0:52

So

Presenter0:54

So to what extent would isolation worry you?

Presenter0:58

Well, I think for the first two or three weeks I probably would really enjoy it, you know, I'd do all those things I really wanted to do. Such as swimming, making sand castles, those things, you know, without people watching all the time. Do you have any musical skill?

Presenter1:12

No, except listening to music. It's one of my no, it's one of my my great sadnesses. I I did have one piano lesson, but I was taught by somebody who uh

Michael Palin1:14

It's one of my

Presenter1:21

grabbed each finger and rammed it down on the keys and that passed for learning to play the piano and so it rather put me off. It didn't take? It didn't take and neither does any other instrument. My children however are rather better at it than I am so I get a vicarious enjoyment. Did you find it very difficult to narrow your choice down to eight? How long did it take you? Yes, well I tried to do it very quickly because I thought well it's best to be just instinctive and there must be eight records which immediately come to mind and I've changed that list about four times since then. So it's taken me over a weekend to think about them. Right, was there any record that was constant to all four lists? There are about four records which remained constant. Well let's have one of those first. Watch please be this is from Duke Ellington.

Presenter2:04

Ellington's meant a lot to me and and this particular one, Things Aren't What They Used To Be, is one of my favourites.

Presenter2:40

Duke Ellington and his orchestra, the Duke's own number, things ain't what they used to be.

Presenter2:44

You're a Yorkshireman, aren't you, Michael? Aye, Roy, that's very true, very true. Which part of Yorkshire? Well, uh uh only just into Yorkshire actually. Sheffield, which was the southern, very southern tip. It used to be in the West Riding and now it's been reorganised at South Yorkshire, but I think it's still in the same place that I used to know. They haven't moved. I don't think they've moved it into Rutland or anything. But you went to school at Shrewsbury.

Presenter3:09

Well, I started off to school in Sheffield. I went to preparatory school from five until fourteen. So I suppose those are most of my formative years. Then it was my father's wish that I should follow in his footsteps and go to Shrewsbury and Clare College, Cambridge. And uh I got the first part right. I went to Shrewsbury, but uh not to Clare. Where did you go and stay in? I went to Brasenose. At the other place? The other place, yes. What did you read? Uh

Presenter3:36

Caught me there. History. History. Yes. Roman history. Modern history. History in the evenings. Modern history. The history degree was just sort of a means to an end.

Speaker 43:43

Yeah.

Presenter3:44

And it sort of kept me going in the evenings, whereas during the daytime I would be writing reviews, doing cabarets, anything that involved acting or writing. There was one production which played six weeks in London. What was that?

Michael Palin3:51

There was

Presenter3:55

That was called Hang Down Your Head and Die. There was a vogue then for theatrical documentaries and this was about hanging and capital punishment which of course hadn't been abolished then in England. And a group of us at university got together and a script was written by a man called David Wright who now runs the National Youth Theatre or did run the National Youth Theatre. And a cast was gathered together and we all sort of worked on the final script and we all, it's rather like Python, we all did about ten different parts. I remember I played a vicar and had to do about a sort of four or five minute spiel to the audience at full volume with tape recorded laughter and applause beside me all the time. And that was the first time I realised that if I do shout on stage I lose my voice. And you had another show that you were mixed up in, which went to the Edinburgh Festival. Yes, that was more my own sort of thing. At Oxford we didn't have an organisation like the Footlights where you wore ties and were elected members and had a special membership room to do review. We had a back room in a pub where we met and the group was called the Etceteras and about five or six of us put together a review for the Edinburgh Festival in 1964. Terry Jones was in it and a chap called Doug Fisher. You were doing a lot of theatrical frittering with Mr. Terry Jones. What was he supposed to be reading? He was reading frittering.

Presenter5:14

He was doing uh frittering to degree level. I think Terry I think Terry, and if you could correct me, he was reading English. Yes, yes, probably is'cause he's writing a book on Chaucer at the moment, so I think he's still fairly steeped in in uh in English.

Michael Palin5:25

Yeah.

Speaker 45:25

Uh

Michael Palin5:25

Dead.

Presenter5:28

Well, I'm sorry to s see that in my notes here you only got a second in in modern history. And on that rather shaming note, let's go on to your third.

Presenter5:37

Walk out of the studio so we can get away with that. Let's go on to our second record.

Michael Palin5:38

Walk out of the studio so that's the one.

Presenter5:41

Well, this is this is why I only got a second.

Presenter5:44

The second record is from one of the Goon shows.

Presenter5:48

And the goons were this is sort of in memory of those nights when I used to race home from school. If the bus didn't arrive on time, I would run almost two miles, arrive totally breathless, the taste of blood in my mouth, in order to hear this show. Tales of Men's Shirts, a story of down under.

Presenter6:16

1938, but from the continent came ominous rumblings.

Presenter6:22

Oh! Oh, this Spanish food! Oh! Wait up! One brandy in Fronto! One brandy in Fronto coming up! Those were the last words said at peace. At that moment, Germany declared war in all directions.

Presenter6:34

An excerpt from a goon show called Tale of Men's Shirts, originally broadcast on december thirty first, nineteen fifty nine, writes You were down from Oxford, surely with a hideous sense of failure.

Presenter6:46

Um

Presenter6:47

What had Teddy Jones got? Had he got a a second?

Presenter6:51

Yes, he only got a second. Poor Terry. One of your early engagements was comparing some T V pop shows. Yes.

Presenter6:58

Yes, I

Presenter6:59

I can never square that with my parents, that after getting a second, after the culmination of whatever it was, sort of 17 years of solid education, I ended up introducing the toys and Eric Clapton at a T V show in Bristol. But that was a job which I did sort of two days a week and it paid the rent, enabled me to get married and all these sort of other silly things. And it was supposed to be a sort of comedy compere, so one did sort of sketches and was generally humiliated and then introduced someone far more successful than yourself.

Michael Palin7:13

But

Presenter7:35

And then you and Mr. Jones wrote comedy material for Ken Dodd, the Billy Cotton Band Show, Kathy Kirby and Roy Hudd.

Presenter7:44

Not particularly of choice, I might add, but Terry had a um an office in the BBC.

Presenter7:49

And uh he was actually a staff writer at the time. He'd come down from university a year before me. And in order to do any writing ourselves, what we really wanted to do was to write for ourselves. We used to creep in there and uh scribble away at our own things and when someone came in, say we were writing for Cathy Kirby or Ken Dodd. And we did have a joke on the Billy Cotton Banshee, I'm glad to say, which I feel extremely proud of. Well, you also wrote for David Frost.

Presenter8:11

Yes, yes. We were one of the uh four thousand that appeared on the roller caption at the end. No, actually the the frost reports were quite a turning point because I think that was the first time that

Presenter8:22

our university and review style of writing was actually uh bought by someone y you know, putting it out to a wider audience through television. Your third record. Now this this goes back to sort of great childhood influences.

Presenter8:37

Where I came from, South Yorkshire, brass band were very popular, you know, and I used to love uh listening and watching brass bands. It was great things to watch. So I've chosen one of the most famous uh of the brass bands, and this is the uh Black Dyke Mills band. Playing what? Playing uh Londonderry Air.

Presenter9:55

The Black Dyke Mills Band, London Dairy Air. Just over ten years ago, a rather curious television series started called Monty Python's Flying Circus. How did all that come together?

Presenter10:09

Well, I think mainly through disillusion at the other shows that we'd been doing before that, Terry Jones and myself and John Cleese and Graham Chapman and Eric Idle on his own had all been writing. We'd been writing for Frost, we'd also written for the other comedians, The Ronnies and Marty. We all knew each other. We knew each other. We knew and admired each other, sort of mutual appreciation society. And I think we felt we wanted to do something in which we had control. We could take all the risks ourselves. We didn't know what it was we wanted to do, but we approached the BBC via Barry Took, and he said he'd talk to a man at the BBC who would in turn talk to us. And

Michael Palin10:25

We all knew each other.

Presenter10:46

We had a meeting at the BBC and Michael Mills came in and said, what do you want to do? And we said, well, we'd like to do well, well sort of unison, some sort of shows. What sort of thing do you want to do?

Presenter10:57

Well, well well, not exactly sure what sort of thing, comedy and that. He said, Right, thirteen shows, still pilot. No, no, went straight out the door. Couldn't understand it.

Michael Palin11:02

Yeah.

Presenter11:06

But we then got going on the shows and they were they had a rather checkered history in the first series. They always got taken off a Horse of the Year show when that overran and they were put on extremely late at night, sometimes quarter to twelve or twelve o'clock. So we didn't really um

Presenter11:20

expect it to to to catch on with any but a sort of few insomniacs and intellectuals. Whose title was it? Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Presenter11:30

The the Flying Circus part was the BBC's. We toyed with lots of other titles. It was just going to be called It's at one time, and then it was going to be called It's Not, because we thought It's was a little bit positive. And we wanted s uh some title that gave people absolutely no indication of what was to come. And uh Monty Python, the the name came up in in the session when we were just desperate. We had to find a name because the BBC wanted to pay us. Well they wanted our names on a contract, put it that way, and they didn't have a title. So Monty Python was a name which made us laugh greatly and the next morning it also made us laugh so we decided we'd stay with that.

Presenter12:05

Now there's another member of the team, of course, Terry Gilliam. He he's a sort of odd man out. I mean he's um not Oxbridge. Very strange. American. American sad to say, but we're gradually curing him of that. He came over from America and he did some cartoons in a in a children's show that Eric Terry and I were writing in 68 called Do Not Adjust Your Set. And he did these very, very funny cartoons which were pure stream of consciousness. Ideas had no connection to each other. And his style very much influenced the actual form of Python. Of course he did the animations in Python.

Presenter12:40

And since that time I I've worked with him on a on a film called Jabberwocky, which he uh he directed. I mean he's a wonderful man, Terry, because he he will dress up in absolutely anything, however horrific, however many layers of make up.

Michael Palin12:49

How many layers of makeup?

Presenter12:51

Yes, he appears, yes. Very, very briefly and usually in quite appalling uh situations, coated in mud or with uh arrows through his head and all that. He he will do almost anything to get on television. Now you've got this series of thirteen. How did you set about it? Did you write it programme by programme or just accumulate a lot of stuff and then sort it out?

Michael Palin13:03

Now you'll drop

Presenter13:12

No, because we were actually resisting the the the traditional beginning, middle and end format of the sketch. I think we just thought let's write with absolutely no preconceived ideas at all. We assembled a huge mound of material and then went round to someone's house and over a period of two days just read through it all and uh

Presenter13:31

The bits that worked and the bits that survived were put into smaller piles, which became the first seven shows. And then we had a bit of a break, and then we did the next six. Let's have another record. What's number four?

Presenter13:42

Well number four, I feel I have to take Elvis with me because I think he was the first musician uh uh really of our generation. I can remember listening to Elvis and feeling that he was special. There was nothing I'd heard like him before. My parents couldn't have told me about him. There was nothing I I'd heard before that, you know, even suggested you might be coming along. So he was very special.

Speaker 414:07

You're a hard heart break.

Speaker 414:09

You love maker

Speaker 414:13

Yeah.

Speaker 414:17

Snatcher, here we go the patcher, what if we can bore it on for today boy?

Speaker 414:26

For I'm just about someone else to the shoes.

Presenter14:31

Elvis Presley, you're a heartbreaker.

Presenter14:34

How many Monty Python programs have there been altogether?

Presenter14:38

There have been uh forty-five done for English television and two programmes which we made for German television. Yes. That's the full extent. Forty-seven television shows altogether.

Presenter14:50

The strange thing about the show is that ev everybody changing costumes and make up wildly and it

Presenter14:56

It was very hard for the viewer to establish identities of the performers and that this didn't worry you.

Presenter15:02

No, it didn't actually. I think it was a strength of the show that uh people didn't identify with one particular person. As soon as you identify, you expect the same thing from that person every time. And I think it gave us much more freedom, the fact that nobody knew who we were. It it distressed my mother somewhat because she could never point me out to people.

Michael Palin15:12

And I think it gave

Presenter15:19

I wonder if that's Michael behind all those whiskers. Yes. She knows who I am now though. She's got it sorted out.

Presenter15:27

And you've done several feature films.

Speaker 415:29

Uh

Presenter15:29

Now the first film, Now for Something Completely Different, did that have a story or was that not a programme? That came about because an American called Victor Lowndes who who is runs the Playboy organization in this country saw and liked Python very much, thought it would do well in the States, but he thought that the television series would not go in the States because no network would put it on because it was a little controversial.

Speaker 415:34

No, no, that was a good idea.

Presenter15:52

And so he said, Will you make a film of some of the best sketches? And so at the end, I think, of the second series, in nineteen seventy, we rushed out and did all the sketches all over again.

Presenter16:02

up in a disused dairy in North London and uh that became now something completely different. And ironically it never took off in the States at all. It's actually made most of its money over here.

Presenter16:12

And then there was Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Now that did have a story. Yes.

Michael Palin16:15

Now that did happen.

Presenter16:17

And now for something completely different had not entirely worked as a ragbag of sketches. It was a cut-off point round about sort of sixty minutes in when people just uh can't absorb any more. They want something they can follow. So the Holy Grail gave the loosest possible story of a quest, a journey, whilst being able to involve us in all sorts of Python sketches and silly ideas along the way. And also we're each able to play a knight, which was quite good for the group, and several other characters as well.

Presenter16:45

And recently, Monty Python's Life of Brian, set in New Testament times, has been a bit of a fuss about this one. I mean you have turned the Sermon on the Mount in a kind of a way into a comic sketch, which is sticking on Eckhart a little bit. Well, yes. I mean, I don't split hairs over it, but actually what happens is the Sermon on the Mount is in the background, and the sketch is about human behaviour at that particular time. It's about a group of people at the back who actually cannot hear what's being said, and therefore they get words wrong. You know, blessed are the cheesemakers and lines like that. And it's really it's about sort of human behaviour more than um divine behaviour.

Michael Palin17:18

Yes.

Presenter17:25

Record number five. Record number five, I I I felt I'd like to have a a musical and

Presenter17:31

This is a musical which I think contains some of the most moving songs and scenes that I can remember. It's Oh, What a Lovely War.

Presenter17:39

And I actually have chosen one song from the film version because I do remember and anyone who has seen the film will remember the marvellous scene at the end which starts with the little girl running through two or three crosses and it pulls out and out and out and widens until the whole screen is filled with thousands of crosses and over that this music plays.

Speaker 417:56

Oh, we'll never tell that.

Speaker 418:01

Oh real

Presenter18:26

Closing sequence from the soundtrack of Oh, What a Lovely War.

Presenter18:30

Now you mentioned the first Monty Python feature film having been made with the States in mind. It has become an extraordinary international property. T V shows have been shown all over the States. Yes, yes. I think they've got to every nook and cranny of America now. And the British jokes go down very well with the Americans. Yes, it doesn't seem to matter that things aren't aren't immediately understood. In fact, it may be a strength. They're not quite sure about Vickers or the rules of cricket or that sort of thing, but they just I think it's the spirit of Python. It doesn't obey any rules. And they rather like that because their television is full of rules.

Presenter19:05

and uh full of attitudes which are nearly always the same and put over in every single comedy. And they they love the uh the sort of non-conformity of Python, I think. And it goes down very well in Japan too.

Presenter19:20

Yes, I I've not been able to get much information. Spike Milligan is about the only persons known to have seen it in Japan, but says it is well worth watching there because

Presenter19:28

It's utterly incomprehensible. And then at the end of about twenty minutes of Python, men in dark suits come on and sit round a table and explain what's been going on. So I don't know, maybe it goes out an awful science programme about uh mental decay in England, but uh it was very popular there. It was

Michael Palin19:36

Yeah, you go.

Speaker 419:37

I didn't admit.

Presenter19:43

It was second only to golf, which I gather in the ratings is usually number one in Japan. Is there any country in which it's failed?

Presenter19:51

Well, Pakistan didn't buy any more than the first series, and we suspect that they may have wanted a circus, and were rather disappointed when there was thirteen shows with no circus acts in at all, but uh

Presenter20:01

That's about all I can think of. Even Albania have taken the odd show. Have they? Hm. Nowadays, of course, you get together for the films when they turn up. Is there another one on the way, by the way?

Presenter20:12

Yes, I uh what we're going to try and do is is write and complete and have on the market another film within two years. So the the end of nineteen eighty one.

Presenter20:22

But apart from the feature films, that's it. I mean, you're all going your own ways and doing your own things now. Yes, I think we found that the the the television shows took up nine months of each year to do one television show and and we really couldn't we couldn't live together that long. I mean I think it's the six of us with six very creative people. They're all going to want to be pushing in different directions. When you can control that sort of uh

Presenter20:47

centrifugal force, then you get very strong material coming up, but uh

Presenter20:51

It didn't last more than about four years. Now it's much better if people have a bit of lead, go go for walkies on their own and then come back and uh join rejoin.

Presenter21:01

Now before we talk about your special your own direction, let's have another record.

Presenter21:06

Well this is uh from a Busby Barclay musical. Some of my favourite films and I would like to remember on any Desert Island the pleasure that they gave me. And this particular one is called Lullaby of Broadway. It also reminds me of New York, a city which I've grown to like very much. It also slightly frightens me and here is Lullaby of Broadway.

Presenter21:52

Lullaby of Broadway from the soundtrack of Gold Diggers of nineteen thirty five, Winifred Shaw and The Girls.

Presenter22:00

Now you've all gone off in different directions. Now the direction you've gone off in recently is ripping yarns. Michael, tell me about those.

Presenter22:08

Well, I was I was asked to do a sort of Michael Palin show, and I asked Terry to write something with me, and we we sort of cast around for ideas. I had given Terry a book one Christmas called I think it was called Ripping Tales, one of these wonderful old uh heroic stiff upper lip stories.

Presenter22:24

And um Terry's brother noticed this in the shell volume. He said, Why don't you write that sort of thing? I mean something with that sort of title. So we call it Ripping Yarns,'cause I think I misheard on the telephone and started to write one about a school, which turned out to be Tomkinson's school days, which was all about a rather savage public school.

Presenter22:43

and uh you sort of young boy makes good. And uh that that worked well. And the BBC said, Well, we'd like to try and do some more in that style. So we just made a list of different titles, like Across the Andes by Frog and uh Escape from Stahlagluft 1012 B.

Presenter23:00

And uh

Presenter23:01

That became a series of six and I've just recently done three more. They take rather a long time to do. They're very carefully done. They're all shot on location. They need a lot of preparation and the script takes a while.

Michael Palin23:11

Yeah.

Presenter23:13

So you've done nine. There are gonna be some more?

Presenter23:16

I don't know. I've not really got any plans for any more. The BBC have not approached us for any more. I'm quite happy to leave it at that. I I enjoyed the style of them. I enjoyed

Presenter23:26

care and quality with which they were done, but um I got lumbered with being the hero every time, which got very, very dull. You never got a s a single line out as the hero. You're always saying, But surely Well, I but don't you then it must be You don't mean Yes, you say never got a single line out. Everyone else had better better

Michael Palin23:39

You don't mean yeah

Presenter23:43

Characters.

Presenter23:44

What comes next?

Presenter23:46

As far as you're concerned. As far as I'm concerned. Oh, well. I'm in the fortunate position with another Python film to come of having some time in between in which I don't have to do anything for money. I mean, I can try and I can experiment. So I'm experimenting by writing a play, which I've never done before. For the living stage? Yes, for the living stage. Strictly for the living stage, with a small set, small cast. I'm not, you know, not letting myself go wild and write in 400 gynecologists or 600 Scottish bagpipers or something like that. And a good part for yourself?

Michael Palin24:04

Yeah.

Michael Palin24:15

Yeah.

Presenter24:16

No, no, there isn't a part in it for myself, which would be lovely too, because I would hate to have to turn up to the theatre every night for years. I mean, if it ran years.

Michael Palin24:22

Yes, I mean

Presenter24:24

No, it's it's just really an experiment and I'm quite um I'm quite enjoying it really. Good. More music, please.

Presenter24:31

Well, I think like Elvis, my my um musical background over the last ten, fifteen years has been inextricably tied up also with the Beatles, and I couldn't go to a desert island without something by the Beatles.

Presenter24:43

Here again the choice is very, very difficult. The later records tend to be uh better produced, but uh the early ones have um better consistency of song. So I've chosen a song from A Hard Day's Night.

Presenter24:54

Things we said today.

Speaker 324:59

You say you will love me if I have to go

Speaker 325:06

You'll be thinking of me Somehow I will know

Speaker 325:13

Someday when I'm lonely Wishing you weren't so far away Then I will remember things we said today

Presenter25:27

The Beatles Things We Said Today from A Hard Day's Night.

Presenter25:31

How are you going to manage on this island in a practical sense? Are you good at looking after yourself?

Presenter25:36

Well, only in my own way. I don't

Presenter25:38

by any of the rules. I'm very bad. I I used to be brought up

Michael Palin25:40

I

Presenter25:42

to um mend bicycle punctures in sixty four different sort of special moves over a period of about two months to mend one puncture. And I much preferred rushing at things and doing them my own way. So I think left on my own I would eventually build a hut or eventually build some boat or anything like that, but it would take probably a very long time.

Presenter26:02

What about food?

Presenter26:05

Uh I I think I'd I'd probably miss good food. I do enjoy nice meals. But uh I like fish. It probably would probably help. Have you ever caught one? Uh no, no, I haven't. I've afraid I've not been into fishing at all.

Speaker 426:13

Have you ever caught one?

Presenter26:21

Right, well we'll just leave it to your perspicacity. When you get there, record number eight, your last one, what's that? Well this is one which I always take when I go abroad anywhere on my little tape recorder'cause it does remind me of home and it's rather splendid. It's uh Elgar and it's the uh Enigma variations. I've chosen the uh Nimrod variation.

Presenter27:42

Nimrod from Elgar's Enigma Variations, Colin Davis conducting the London Symphony Orchestra.

Presenter27:49

If you would take only one disk of the eight you've chosen, which would it be?

Presenter27:54

Well, extremely difficult, but I think I would take the uh the Elgar.

Presenter27:59

I feel that's almost timeless and would uh would last well. You're allowed to take one luxury with your

Presenter28:05

Yes, I've thought about this. Now all food and drink would eventually go off and run out, leaving one with a terrible thirst for what you haven't got. So I chose in the end the most luxurious feather pillow that I could possibly have. A really beautiful feather-filled pillow. Yes, of course. And if a bed came with it as well, that would be wonderful. I think we can. Could you throw in the bed as well? We'll throw it. Of course, nothing but the highest quality. Highest quality. Yes, I could sew fish skins together, but it was a blanket, so we could sort out that.

Michael Palin28:21

And if

Michael Palin28:24

Could you throw the very highest quality?

Presenter28:33

All right. And you're allowed one book. The Bible and Shakespeare are already on the island to avoid argument. And.

Presenter28:40

We don't encourage big multi-volume encyclopedias. Hmm. Well, after a lot of casting around and rejecting such great authors as James Cameron and Jane Austen, I have lighted upon Vanity Fair by Thackeray, which I think would last well. I think it's full of humour, insight, jollity. It would entertain me greatly. And it has a little passage in it which I really like, which goes, The world is a looking glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. Frown at it, and it will in turn look sourly upon you. Laugh at it, and it is a jolly, kind companion, which I think is.

Presenter29:15

Nice epitaph. It is indeed. And thank you, Michael Palin, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thank you.

Presenter29:22

Goodbye, everyone.

Michael Palin29:31

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.

Speaker 430:02

Uh