Something Completely Different
It’s not pining
It was a good idea. It was a great idea. It was the finest idea any student at the college had ever had: to get Monty Python’s Flying Circus on to the stage of the Sponsor’s Hall*. And best of all — it was my idea.
The college was a place of contrasts. I’ve mentioned the Wonder elsewhere: that was in the “new” building, which has long since been demolished. The “old” building is still where it was, developed and divided into the kind of maisonettes in which shady billionaires park their loot: back then its Library was too small and under-stocked to be useful, its basement was the domain of mice and cockroaches, but Sponsor’s Hall* was just right for a select band of students to enjoy some popular entertainment.
Bands! Yes! (who played there twice.) And others too forgotten to remember! But there was an undercurrent of resentment among some of the student body, for instance those who didn’t like rock music, or had bedrooms just along the corridor from the Hall, or both. “Why,” asked one old fogey (a Mature Student of twenty-eight, married with young children and old opinions), “must we always have blare and noise?” It was never clear whether he would favour a string quartet or some refined folk-dancing, or just nothing at all to disturb his peace as he got quietly smashed in his home-from-home, the Union Bar (in the “new” building. Stevie Wonder, remember?). He had a point though, I thought: especially when it fell to me to decide who should be the headline act at the Christmas Ball.
This annual all-night entertainment oozed and sprawled across three locations in the old building. It was devoted to dressing in hired finery and eating and drinking and music and dancing and laughter and drinking. The tradition was to engage a reasonably well-known pop act with either an extensive back-catalogue or a recent number-one hit under their belt. We were young, we were eager to learn and hungry for the New, but above all, we prized Familiarity. And so…
I called the agent whose pawns we usually were. I didn’t want the offered Beach Boys (who hadn’t had a hit for a while, and were said to be a poor live act) or the Hollies (who hadn’t had a hit in even longer). I knew the Pythons’ material had originated in colleges similar to ours. Could they be persuaded to do it again (not the Beach Boys’ number)? For old times’ sake?
It took him a lot of phone calls, he said, a lot of phone calls. Certainly he charged for a lot of calls. But it paid off: for old times’ sake, plus the money we would otherwise have spent on a fading rock group, its equipment, roadies and assorted hangers-on, three Pythons would arrive in a taxi and do an hour’s worth of the sketches we’d seen on their recent, nay their current, TV series. A bargain!
(Once again, there was resistance. “Why,” asked Mr Fogey, “should these people be paid so much — ” but he was quickly shouted down by others pointing out that he would not have bought a ticket at any price, no matter who was on the bill. He didn’t like comedy any more than he liked music.)
So it was all happening. I decided to save money and be creative by producing a poster myself, using the free (if nobody who cared was looking) blueprint machine at the nearby engineering college, instead of paying for the dull screenprints everyone expected. A long Saturday afternoon with Letraset and permanent-marker produced my master, and another afternoon (Wednesday, when officious engineers would be out playing football or rugby) tending the blueprint machine produced the fifty A1-size sheets I needed. One of them I printed back-to-front, just for fun; I wish I could remember what happened to it.
And on the night — John Cleese, Terry Jones and Mike** Palin arrived in three separate taxis, carrying all their own props (raincoats, and a papier-maché parrot in a cage), and performed as contracted to a Hall packed with 500 students (fire regulations, you say? there were only 350), earning devoted silence (we had no P.A. Imagine!) and deafening applause in all the right places. Occasionally, naughty words were substituted into sketches we knew by heart, and there were even a couple of jokes we hadn’t heard, that would not have made it to 1970s television. It was a night to remember for all concerned, especially Mr Cleese, who complained loudly after the show that someone had purloined his parrot (someones, I heard later: the cage went one way, the parrot another, the perch a third. I guess they may turn up one day in an auction). Then they went away again, a little richer — or by our standards, a lot richer, approximately six months’ salary should one of us ever graduate and find employment — but not as rich as we felt. There were other acts — much music to dance to, a horror film, a magician or suchlike — that nobody would recall even the next day, unless they could look at the poster. Which I could…
Most of those posters disappeared shortly after the event, if not before, taken as souvenirs by ticket-holders or anyone else who wanted a limited-edition piece of art(!)work. I kept one framed on a wall for years, a talking-point for any visitor, until the day I noticed that its deep purple ink had faded while its pale mauve background had darkened. Too late, I recalled why blueprints are usually kept in the dark. It’s probably beyond repair; and if I ever kept the master, it’s gone wherever the back-to-front copy went***.
It felt like a long time later (three years is a long time. Ask any student) that the TV phenomenon began to transfer to live theatres — Drury Lane, the Hollywood Bowl — in which the full team of Pythons could play to large audiences and start to make serious money. They never thanked me for giving them the impetus. And there were books and records, and of course the films and the musical. And reunions.
But that was something completely different.
*Not its actual name. Their sponsorship has run out. Ha!
**“Did he call himself Mike?” Not as far as I’m aware. I’d miscalculated how much Letraset I would need for the poster, and shops weren’t open on Sunday in the 1970s.
There’s always a reason.
***A sensible person would have put both of them in the frame behind the display copy.
Yes, I’ve looked.
[Because Anne asked]
