Fawlty Tours 

I’ve decided that Fawlty Tours is the perfect title for being on the road with John. Although I’m not exactly Manuel material. The play version of Fawlty Towers opens in Sydney in August and stars our ex Australian Lancelot as Basil. I hope they have better luck than Spamalot did. It was always a tremendous disappointment the way it was produced here, for it opened very well in a wonderful production in Melbourne and then having spent (wasted) a fortune on lavishly shipping things and people back and forth from New York, instead of moving on to other cities they simply closed. The entire production. They said they couldn’t find anywhere else to play. Not Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth or Auckland. I couldn’t believe it.

Our New York producers, who knew everything about Broadway, sadly repeated the same pattern in London, flying people and costumes back and forth from New York, as if theatre had never been done before in the UK. The most egregious waste of money was they sent one actor all the way from Melbourne to Broadway to “show to” Mike. Because he was busy she was holed up in a NY Hotel for 8 days before he could hear her sing one song and then said “She’s fine” and she was flown all the way back. They did the same with costumes. For London they simply flew in a NY producer to sit in the UK for a couple of years to produce. Nuts.

Happily, shortly thereafter we split with the Producers, and now in conjunction with the admirable TRW we license performances all round the world. And instead of lavishly flying Broadway people in we permit them to make their own productions, like real theatre. This has worked very well in Spain, France, Mexico, Sweden, Norway, Poland, Japan, etc etc. It’s Denmark’s turn next year, although the Danish producers keep bugging me to produce a little promo film for their big announcement in May. I hesitated for a while as I misread it as a little porno film, and I felt even for Denmark that was too much, but now I get it. They want something for the launch about how thrilled I am they are mounting this in the homeland of the depressive schizophrenic ham. Alright, alright, I’ll get to it, but I am working you know. We haven’t got much longer on the road. Three nights in Melbourne, from tonight and then just Auckland and Wellington and we’re done and dusted. Mind you this tour has done very well. Totally sold out, and standing room in Sydney, and I don’t think there are any seats left here in Melbourne. I believe you can get into the second night in Auckland, but you have to bring a sheep. It’s a two for one deal.

Anyway I’m sure Fawlty will do very well here. Every night in the Q and A there are always at least eight questions about The TV Series. Usually all the same, about whether it will come back, or was Manuel really hurt. John never picks them, though he does talk about the production. As I say I think it will do very well and he comes back in August to keep a watchful eye on his players. It was first mounted very successfully in Scandinavia by our great Scandinavian Spamalot director Anders Moon, who made a huge hit of it. So there is a great precedent.

The one amazing thing John reveals to me is that while there are Fawlty Towers characters and dining experiences all over the world, that clear a million dollars of profit a year, they do not pay him a single penny! So I hope he cleans up on the play.

Fawlty Tours spent Saint Paddy’s day flying to Melbourne, where it was a lovely warm day and then I took the bride out to a nice romantic dinner in The Atlantic restaurant which is part of the new Crown hotel and casino which has magically arisen since we were last here. The food was excellent, but their “pours” were extraordinarily parsimonious. I asked cheekily if there was a wine shortage in Australia after one sommelier hardly reached the half way mark in a wine sold by the glass. Same with the wife’s champers, and she looked shocked. Barely half way which at thirty bucks a glass is a real rip off. Not good chaps.

Perhaps they felt we had had too much the night before in Sydney saying farewell, with the amazing Erica Gregan pouring. Now there’s a lass who knows how to fill a glass. We were sad to leave Sydney, it all went too fast, and the audiences were great. And now for the great St.Patricks hangover day it’s raining here. Ah well, a good day to catch up with correspondences and grumble about producers.

Farewell to the New South Welsh.

Another rainy day in Sydney and sadly our last, for tomorrow we to Melbourne go and so it’s hi ho for the open road and on to the Quantum of Qantas..

Our tour is fast disappearing and that’s rather sad, although John goes on immediately to tour Malmo and Belgium. He confesses to being anxious and a tour of Malmo and Belgium is enough to still anxiety into anybody. Of course he will have to answer questions about why I am not with him. What can he possibly say? The truth is I am going on a tour of Tahiti. The audiences are tiny, in fact mainly fish, but the scenery man…

We were both very relaxed at the show last night, and another great audience gave us standing O’s and left happy. Bryan Adams came to the show and then backstage to say hello. We have a few friends in common, the adorable Jeff Lynne, with whom he recently recorded some tracks and the late and constantly lamented Michael Kamen, whom we both adored and with whom he wrote his two enormous hits “ Everything I do I do for you” and my personally favourite
“Have you ever really loved a woman?” which I play all the time.   

He brought with him a lovely lady Gwendoline Christie a very funny English actress whose presence in my dressing room has caused consternation and envy in my daughters Message feed, for she plays the warrior Brienne of Tarth in the HBO series Game of Thrones which has replaced the Bible in young people’s lives, and is not dissimilar, although I don’t remember Dragons in the Bible and I personally think they would be an enormous improvement.

Bryan is very complimentary about my guitar playing which is very gratifying for me and says he is working on a musical, so I tell them about the three years I spent writing Death the Musical and what a good idea I thought that was for Broadway! Gwendoline laughs her head off and then says she wants to see it. Brian wants one of the songs….

Perhaps I should make it a posthumous musical. I remember the songs were good thanks to the great John Du Prez, and even quite funny and as I say Bryan wants me to send him one.
If I can only figure out how to email songs…

An amusing email from Billy Connolly this morning with a picture of him being buggered by a bear, holding his nipples, entitled Nipple Donor, and announcing that the National Health Service in Scotland have chosen this picture to advertise their organ transplant programme. What a delight Billy is. For many years he entertained us annually celebrating Lonarch in his Scottish castle, which I skittishly once called Pamelot, for it was wondrously and efficiently ruled by the Lady Stephenson from these very Southern parts, who strove hard entirely for our pleasure, to amuse us and feed us royally, and where we comedic Sassanachs would dance the night away in kilted splendour, and I’m talking the funniest company, Robin Williams, Steve Martin, Eddie Izzard, Billy and myself…. oh the laughs we had.. It was just down the street, in Highland terms, from the Queens summer digs, and occasionally the heir to the throne, having heard of the company we were keeping at Candacraig would call up and ask to come over. When he did we were always very cheeky and he would laugh and laugh. It was like Jesters Castle. Very healthy for him.

A request from the Discovery Channel to celebrate Haemorrhoid Day as
all we Pythons apparently have haemorrhoids named after us and apparently there is a severe danger that one will crash into the earth. I hope it crashes into the Discovery Channel because they constantly run shitty ads. I’m torn between making an elegant excuse or telling them to fuck off. Which is the polite response? I’ve been on the road so long I’ve forgotten. I wouldn’t like to be accidentally polite. 

This so called wonderful world of celebrity is a bombardment of people constantly demanding you sign bits of paper or pose for selfies, it’s a p in the a. John leads the way in denying these endless selfie requests. “No, I don’t know you,” he says perfectly reasonably which allows him to escape and I follow in his wake….

And so farewell to Sydney. If you didn’t come to the show at least you can tell your grandchildren you weren’t there….

Sydney A Night at The State.

Well we were a bit of a triumph last night in Sydney. The audience rose as one.

There was only one…

No, but seriously missus….

They stood and cheered.

Very sweet.

We both thought we were a bit off in Act One, but we were wrong, they went nuts at the end, and our friends, well they were frankly embarrassing in their praise. Of course they are our friends and we were giving them free drinks but still, the enthusiasm and the awe was amazing. You can see it in their eyes. And also they said it loudly and often. One of the Campbell sisters, the brilliant artistic one, said it was the best show she’d ever seen, which frankly is going to piss off The Lion King. The more voluble actress club owner one said, well she never stopped saying how amazing it was, and the third sister the clever designer and cloth maker has promised me a shirt. Well her husband did. The indefatigable Joffe beamed proudly and paternally in his Pickwickian way, and said very nice things. It was great to see Glen Shorrock and Jo, ancient friends, and he complimented me on my guitar playing – he’s a muso so that meant a lot, whilst the Umbilical Brothers, again old friends, were filled with nothing but praise. I think the nature of our show took everyone by surprise. It’s the oddity of conversation between old friends, and quirky tit bits about early Python days, that is unexpected, and then of course we show funny clips they haven’t seen, and perform sketches they don’t know, John discourses on racist gags with hilarious examples, and I sing rude songs. It’s a bit of a two man variety show and they really appreciated it. Of course Dave Umbie said it best. “PS – your show was just pipped at the post by Tania’s hair style. Hardly recognised her! Vavavoom!”

I really will have to get rid of her if she keeps on upstaging me, but I’ve grown terribly fond of her over the years, and she just keeps on getting better. I know John and I both agree we would never have any more wives, just a tour manager, but still Tania is exceptional and I would miss her even after 39 years.

So yes it was an amazing night and to cap it all our new best friend Erica Gregan threw a drinks party for us and we all had far too much fun. I met her lovely husband George, and of course he being a Rugby God knows my cousin Nigel Wray who owns the Saracens. Small world.

Sydney is a very social society and I always, always, always have fun here. It seems sad we have only two more days before our flying circus moves on to Melbourne. That’s really too bad. Someone should invent a really good reason for me to stay around here doing not very much. Actually John wrote his memoirs in The Four Seasons here for four months. That’s a very good idea. I should come back here and write his memoirs….

Well it’s a rainy Sydney morning so I’ve asked the wife to bring out her finest lingerie and I’m going to put it on. 

 After breakfast obviously.

 Then a good deal of resting and it’s back to the rather daunting dressing room at the glorious State Theatre, where the walls are filled with signed posters of the funniest people ever: Dylan Moran, Bill Bailey, Eddie, Dame Edna, Joan Rivers etc etc. No wonder I felt a little anxious at the beginning, but the missus said I came on with a spring in my step and no one noticed the limp. That’s thanks to excellent Footlights Training…

Sydney Opening Night.

It’s getting to the nitty gritty. Tonight we open in Sydney at the lovely old State Theatre. Three nights here and immediately we move to Melbourne for three more nights. That’s six shows in seven days, which is tough by anyone’s standards. Then it’s arriverderci Australia and on to the land of the Kiwi.

It was a lovely weekend in preparation for all this. The wife is on song and happy to see me, and I have been hopping shopping round Sydney like a one-legged kangaroo on speed, cursing my medical people and limping around grumpily and beginning angry songs:

            You probably don’t need to be told

            But it bloody well sucks to be old…

Collapsing gratefully on to chairs in the Strand Arcade and The Queen Victoria Building, which, sadly it turns out, does not contain the original Queen Victoria’s Secret. Now that would be a fun shop window to create. Or a nice catalogue. Banksy dig out the bloomers for the short middle aged mittel-European models in real Victorian underwear. Actually Terry Gilliam would do that very well. Perhaps we shouldn’t sell him after all. The offers have in any case been derisory and he is a funny man to have around. Last year Variety announced he was dead and we end our current show with a very funny picture of him he shot of his own deathbed and published on his website.

So Sir Limpalot continues and it turns out comedy is not the best medicine. Not doing it on the road anyway. The very essence of stand up is that you can at least stand up, and although we are billed as sit-down comedy, nevertheless we are required by the exigencies of our show to occasionally stand up.

I love Sydney and it’s people and have many friends here. The city has grown enormously since I first arrived in 1976 and I could easily live here. Last night the delightful Little Nell (Nell Campbell) wined and dined me with her lovely family and we reminisced about that first time when we all drove up to the Carrington Hotel in an old green Jaguar and Tim Street-Porter took amazing photographs of that long ago place. Tonight a bunch of friends are coming, and now I am obliged to get up and shave my legs because I am on New Zealand breakfast TV very shortly.

People keep asking me in hushed terms, reserved normally for divorcing couples “How are you two getting on?” And they’re not referring to the lovely missus, but to me and John. They seem surprised when I say “Great. We have terrific fun both on and off the stage.” But what about the Daily Mail they say, and I will ironically acknowledge that of course the Daily Mail knows better than the facts. They should. They make them up. The difference is that when it was first pointed out to me that the Daily Mail (I’m sorry to keep using bad language) was saying that John and I hated each other I immediately emailed John and we had a good laugh about it and compared notes and marvelled at the unhealthy monsters who write for it and their unpleasant motives. The fact remains that we are on the second leg (yes irony) of our second tour and we have had a ball. And we are even planning another. It’s fun sharing the stage with John. It’s fun touring with John. It shows on the stage and it shows off the stage. We have hilarious dinners, and we make the punters laugh. We have known each other 53 years. It’s some kind of a miracle to be back together again at last doing a show for the very first time. Der Daily Mail has a far reach when it comes to damage but always remember that malice is their motive and envy their God. And as we say in Rutland Weekend Television Futuaris Irrisus Redibis Est. Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke….