I. Don't know why they never made
another Spike series. Maybe that the BBC had decided
that Spike had had a long run of material and he just needed to
be rested while they gave someone else the opportunity to
do. I don't really know, You'd have
to ask. The executives.
But it was rather sad that we never did another show.
End of pod, one pod, metal. If you see Pod, tell him.
Two Pod four children. Oh, hello, You find me trying to
come up with a suitably punning title for this week's edition of
Goombod. It's My guest is the comedy
writer Andrew Marshall. Regular listeners will recall
that in February I spoke to Andrew's erstwhile writing
partner, David Renwick. Both had written for Spike
Milligan in the 80s. In fact, they became very good
friends with Spike and would socialize with him over the
years. So obviously I was keen to talk
to Andrew about his memories of Spike as well as talk about his
career in general. Later in the conversation, we
touch on Alexi Sales stuff to 2.4 Children, Health and
Efficiency Wilt. And also Douglas Adams and John
Lloyd. Something for everyone.
Hope you enjoy the conversation. Oh, and by the way, I think I'm
going to go with whoops, Apocalypse.
How does that sound? I'm sod you then.
I've never been that interested in myself as a person.
I guess it's just it's the work that motivates me, you know, not
the. It's it's probably an absolute
curse these days because I I probably ought to be far more
self promoting, but I just it's just not in me and I'm not that
kind of person for some reason. I'm a quiet sort of person, you
know. Good.
So am I. Do you think, oh, I nearly said
Prince. Do you think King Charles
listens to it? Well, I have.
I'm still waiting for my knighthood.
I have. It began as I thought, you know,
before. The Queen died, I thought.
Wouldn't it be a great coup to get Prince Charles on?
Yeah, I mean, how the hell do you, you know, make contact and
all that? But wouldn't it be great?
And then he became king. And you know, he's got no time
now. So.
That ain't gonna happen. I have tried to broaden it out
so it's not just about the goons as such.
I like it to. I like to talk about comedy in
general, of a certain vintage right up to.
The 90s, I suppose. We.
Tend to talk when it stopped being funny, basically.
Yeah, Yeah, from 1999 onwards. Yeah, that would be exactly the
point I would. Went to 2.4 children end. 1999
there. You go.
But I so, yeah, we, I encourage talk.
Yeah. General conversation about
comedy in general and all that sort of thing.
And so thank you very much for coming on because I appreciate.
You didn't really do a lot of work with Spike Milligan, but
I'd just like to to talk about your, your influences and the
work you did do with him. And I know that because
obviously I've had David on previously and you know he did
talk quite a bit about the, there's a lot of it about and
the sort of the the fact that the two of you didn't get a lot,
you wrote a lot, but a lot of it wasn't used I believe.
I think that's that's often the case though in in in when, you
know when we were contributing sketches to shows, quite often
you'd write a lot of, I think we did write at one point some
Morgan and Wise sketches and not a single one was ever used,
right. I think at one point at the very
early stage it was going to be called Q10 because there was
talk about a sort of head with false eyelashes on that was the
cute hand or some such thing, but it eventually, I don't know
who. Who gave it the title is a
little bit. I don't think it was Spike.
It's probably the BBC management or something.
But it really has got to have a sensible title this year.
I don't have all this cue knots. It only took the 13 years to
decide on that. Yeah, there's a lot of it.
About was was the sort of the last knockings of Spike's TV
sketch career, I suppose, wasn't it?
Yes, yes, I think we managed to kill it off pretty adequately.
And so. Scrolling right back, because I
guess you were you were just a bit too young for the goon show.
But I yeah, the my for well, in a way.
I mean, my first encounter would be with the Tele goons, which I
I think came out when I was around 10 or something like
that. Well, they they've literally
just last week celebrated the 60th anniversary.
So it was 60 October 63. So I would have been.
I would have been nine and even younger, Yeah.
And. I absolutely loved that.
And in fact, I only recall this the other day.
I totally forgot about it. My mother made me an Eccles sort
of doll all. Right.
I wish I still had it. It was a very, very good
rendition of the one on the television.
Then later I think, I think when I was around elevenish.
They repeated a selection of goon shows on what was then the
home service, and I remembered listening to them with my dad,
who was an enormous fan of the Goon show.
You know, it was, it was very much his kind of humour.
And I was actually, I was talking to Rob Grant, my current
writing partner today, and he said his dad was an enormous fan
of the goon shows. I know what this I don't know
whether that's significant or not.
But we listened them, we listened to them together, you
know, I think they were quite late at night, so I think it was
allowed to stay up. And you know, they were very,
very funny. And we had in our house, we had
two or three of the goon LP's, the BBC had filleted the music
out of the shows. You probably, we do know this
already. Everybody does is listening to
this. And and and condense them down
to just the dialogue. And I think we had I think three
of them. So there were certain episodes
that I I'd heard like 600 times because.
Yeah, yeah. In those days you had about 12
records and you just used to play them over and over and
over. Again, so that would be Ted.
Tales of Old Dartmoor, probably. The Scarlet Capsule, probably.
It tells Old Dartmoor, yes, and I think China's story.
Was. Oh yeah, yeah.
Yeah, and of course. I could be wrong in this.
I'm not quite sure. Didn't Jack Jackson use bits of
them on his show? He was very, very skillful and
interesting, just to a sort of a sort of precursor to Kenny
Everett in a way. And he would use bits of comedy
records and sort of interact with them by clever tape
editing. Later, later taken up by Adrian
Just. Yes, and and and Victor Lewis
Smith, I suppose. That's that's the that's the
that's the lineage of all that. But my my dad was also an
enormous fan of Jack Jackson and the BBC only hold 2 Jack Jackson
shows in their Alcoholics which when my father was very, very
ailing and they very kindly gave me the two episodes that they've
got so I could play them too. Very sweet.
Just on that you say there's only they only hold 2 but.
Things are turning out all the time that the thought lost just
this week and I and I completely I had no intention of mentioning
this today, but you've just made me think of it.
Are you aware of the fact that in the in the mid 50s on
Hancock's half hour, Tony Hancock did a runner?
Yes, and and for three episodes or two episodes.
With Harry, seek him. Harry seek him.
And then there was a third episode when when Hancock
returned and Harry came back in and there was a gave Hancock an
opportunity. Via the The Show to thank Harry.
Yes. And that's just been.
Turned, been turned. That's just turned up, which is
brilliant news. So really looking forward to
hearing that when it's all. I mean, I've I've got a lot of
old reel to reel tapes of of radio shows I recorded when I
was quite young, but unfortunately I haven't got a
real tape recorder that works anymore, so we'll never be able
to retrieve those tapes unfortunately.
But just sort of bringing us back to the subject.
Again, sorry, yes. I think I'm right in saying the
first joke I ever sold to TV was on the Harry Secombe show.
It wasn't a very good joke. It was simply someone saying,
and now the long range weather forecast, and it cut to a
picture of Harry Secombe standing a very long way away,
shouting rain. That's funny.
Still relatively funny. And not bad for about, I must
have been about 13 or something. When I said, oh, wow, so OK,
right. So if you were born in the mid
50s, you'd have been the right age for Flying Circus.
Perfect age of Flying Circus, which is.
Yeah. And obviously, I guess, sorry,
I'll read that again a bit earlier.
Was that all an influence as well on?
You. Oh, yes.
We used to listen to, I mean on Sunday in in the 60s when I was
sort of you know. A young, you know, a middle,
middle child of about 10 or something.
There was never any television wasn't on during the day and
every Sunday lunchtime there would be a comedy show.
It would very often be around the hall or the Clitheroe kid or
something like that. And we used to, you know, as a
family, we would always listen to those and you know, they,
they were an enormous. Motive for me starting to write
company which I I think I'm right in saying I started about
11 sending things to to TV and and radio and eventually I used
to to sell kind of like little what we used to call quickies to
to to TV and. Weekending.
And later, no, no weekending came much later when I went.
When I was about when I was 18, I came to London to train to to
to teach maths at Borough Rd. College in Hounslow.
And then I was free to cut lectures on a Friday and go into
weekend my weekend. But previous to that, when I was
at home in Lowestoft, I'd written jokes and quickies for
the precursor to That's Life, which is called Braden's Week.
Yep. And I used to send those in
weekly and they would, they would very often be down.
I was actually, you know, I was actually running comedy at a
very, very early age. So I've been doing it.
I reckon I've been doing it for something like 57 years.
I think I calculated the other day actually selling it, you
know. And making decent money or just?
Pocket. Yeah, you.
Well, you used to make a reasonable amount of money.
In fact, I. At one point, just just hopping
on the weekending, I wrote so many next week's news lines that
they had to make me editor at the end because they were just
spending too much money on me that.
But so when you're at 11/12/13 and you were writing comedy.
What did your friends at school think of this?
Did they? Were you?
Were you getting them to act it out?
Were you doing putting on plays? Were you doing anything like
that? No, no, I never did anything
like that. I don't, I don't know that they
even knew, to be honest. I mean, they might have known.
I don't really. I don't really recall terribly.
It was a very long time ago, a very young boy at the time.
So I think my parents thought I was a bit strange, really.
But you know, you have to remember at that time.
There was really no way of getting into comedy other than
being a writer. You couldn't really, you weren't
really allowed to perform your comedy because acting was a
closed chop, weren't allowed to direct your comedy because TV
was a closed chop. And for someone you know, my dad
was a bricklayer and my mum worked in Marks and Spencer's.
And for someone with my background, you know, who hadn't
gone to Oxbridge, there were very few ways into.
You know one's chosen profession.
It was quite a difficult, you know, way to to find a door into
it. Did did you harbor any
ambitions, though, to be to be in front of the camera or or the
microphone or was you did you always think, well, I I just
want to be a writer? I think I wanted to be John
Cleese, you know, around that age, OK?
It's just that, you know, it wasn't technically possible.
I mean, it's taken me. You know, 60 years to actually
be a performer and perform my own sketches, which we did a
couple of years ago in the nether regions that you know.
And yeah, I have to say, it was such a joyous experience to
finally get to that. Point He popped up in Alexis
Sales stuff, haven't you? Yeah, and I I was briefly in
David's drama series. What was it?
Love Soup? Love soup?
Yeah, we're really desperate. Which I think we know we are we.
Could always wheel out this party piece.
What's this? Robbie told the actor who plays
Moose has the ability to hold a belch for 35 seconds from the
source. Tragically, we'll get a bigger
laugh on anything we can ever write.
OK, all right, OK, listen, listen, listen.
So she'll just stand there staring at him and she waits for
him to finish. And what does she say?
She says. God, you are unbelievable.
I didn't know you were an atheist.
Yes, enough with your atheist remarks.
Which is a Quaker I find very offensive.
It's. A practicing Quaker.
It's a. Practicing Quaker, I find most
offensive. Yeah.
You don't think the religious heterodoxy might be a little
taxing? Forces.
What's? An atheist?
It's. A Quaker?
Is that like a posh duck? Maybe when I when I've been
teaching for about a year and I think a year at a term.
I was I I was I was given the opportunity to go to London
Weekend Television as a sort of trainee writer and Humphrey
Barkley in the comedy department which I took like a short and
then you know that set me up for a a future in in in comedy
writing. You know you it was a great job
because you just hang around and watch things happening and
contribute to this, that and the other.
And we we you know we were making end of part one at the
time so that's sort of. Paid them back a certain amount
and it was a it was a it was a great apprenticeship really.
You can tell it's very it's sprang from Python's loins in
many ways, I suppose. There's a lot of TV parodies and
and and I gather that the first series there was kind of a what
would you call it, A connecting thread?
Yes. With two two very bland
characters around whom the comedy happened.
Yes, Norman, Various straight man they were called.
That's right. That's right.
And I can remember, and we're probably talking three or four
years ago watching some some episodes of End of Part One.
And there's so much commentary about television and television
shows in the television industry.
There's a sketch where I think it's Denise Coffey is
auditioning to be the test card girl, for example.
We we had a terrible problem with that actually because
Denise was was sitting there you know with the clown and the and
the blackboard and the gag was that she you know that was her
job just to get there still all the time whilst various
orchestra play and we had the directors voice over say OK fade
down orchestra one and fade up orchestra two and because of the
musicians union rules. We weren't allowed to say this
because you actually literally had to have two orchestras.
Oh geez, just, you know, just talking about the closed shop
games. I think it actually had to say
track one and track two. In the end, there were all sorts
of rather bizarre sort of Spanish practices like that that
we had to contend with at the time.
So yeah, I know it was like TV parodies was called my Bluff
parody, which I very much enjoyed, but.
There's also things like conceits like the the closing
titles coming in halfway through the show and things like that.
That is very Python, I think. Was there, Was there a lot of
spike in terms of the Q series that went in?
Yes, yes. Spike.
Yes, of course, yeah. And sketches that didn't end and
molded into other sketches and all sorts of things like that,
Yes. Yeah.
And, and and that was kind And the part one was kind of an
unofficial spin off or television spin off of the
Burkas way. Yes.
And I I know that Spike was quite impressed by both.
And look, I don't want to keep going back to when I spoke to
David, but it's just that he spoke about how your
introduction to Spike came about and he invited you out for
dinner, I believe, in London, like an Italian restaurant.
And he said that it was equal parts hilarious and baffling.
David has the advantage of his Diaries sort of back and I don't
recall that at all, but. OK, no recollection.
Now we did go out, Spike would quite often take us out for
meals in in Hendon to to the to the to the Indian restaurant.
But I don't remember. There probably was such a thing.
I just don't recall it at all, OK.
And do you remember much about the actual, you know, working
on? There's a lot of it about.
Oh, yes. Yes, it was just a great.
I mean, Spike was. You know, I really love Spike.
He he was a lovely man. He he reminded me enormously of
my father. So he's kind of like having a
comedy father in a way. He was very, very nice to us.
He used to invite us to his house where we'd have these
meetings and read through the things with Neil Shand he he was
just a very warm and wonderful host.
I mean, he was Spike Milligan. So there was a lot of
inconsistency in his character. But we had some really great
evenings there and you know, I, I I remember them very fondly.
Who knows why he chose some sketches about others.
I remember 11 interesting sketch we did, which was a sort of fake
Spike obituary that started one of the shows which claimed Spike
had just died. I think this came out of Spike
Milligan saying to us once. That tone, that tone they use
when they when someone died, they always cut back to the
studio and the news reader says Spike Willigan, who died today.
I can just hear them saying Spike Willigan, who died today.
And it sort of, you know, we wrote that little bit where it
looks as if he died and then the still picture room came to life
and started taking its own pulse and things.
And I was just, I was amused to find in a latest Spike biography
it was actually published at the beginning of the book as if it
were a Spike written sketch. Was he did he.
He didn't write any of it at all.
It was actually David, but I I. I remember that.
I remember that sketch and and they they they pay tribute to
Spikes. Yeah.
Did they pay tribute to Spike by screening?
Bloody awful George Forbes. Yeah, no, he was.
He was a, he was a, he was an A great person to work and fast,
of course, fascinating as a character.
You know, he would have on his mantelpiece a sort of notice
that said we do not smoke cancerettes in this house and he
would stand in front of it smoking a cigar.
You know, that's kind of pussy off.
Do you know, Do you remember when you were there at Spike's
house one night when he went off to get something and he came
back in looking very shaken because he just had a phone call
to say Diana Doors had died? Yes, I remember.
That distinctly the thing about visiting Spike was you go, I
expect David has already said this, but you go around to his
house and ring the bell and this sort of really sad old man would
open the door and say hello Andrew, come in and.
You know, he'd be really, really down.
And during the course of the evening he'd sort of like an
inflating balloon actually gradually becomes like really
and become quite funny and and fun and so forth.
You know, would give you funny hats to put on or some such
thing, or would show you his Indian family albums and all
sorts of things that were enormous fun.
Yeah, I remember that, very distinct.
And when he came back, that was the end of the evening because
he was very, very, I don't know why he was so upset about that,
but maybe Diana Doors was a was a friend, I don't really know.
She was a great, she was a very nice woman.
Diana Doors, we did the Bruce Forsyth sketch with her once on
on Bruce Forsyth's big night. I always remember this because
it was sort of like, you know, where, you know, he used to get
the public to come in and play the sort of play and yeah.
And Bruce Forsyth was playing Fagin in it, and somebody had to
play Nancy. We went through this whole list
of people, and we eventually the only person we could think of
was dying at all. And she came in to read, and
Bruce was late into rehearsals, and so I had to sit there.
Reading through the script with daughters as Bruce Forsyth going
tired of my love dancing. And The funny thing is knowing
Bruce Forsyth is going to sort of come into the room at some
point, which he did, and I have to, I have to give him credit.
He didn't bat an island. He just came down, sat down and
immediately just took over the script from the point.
I was brilliant. I hear he was a very nice man,
he was. An extremely nice brand, great
person to work with. He was very, very good to
everybody on the team. You know, however lowly they
were, he was, he was absolutely a real, really kind and and and
and not that he wasn't, you know, fussy about detail, which
all good comedians are, you know, they check their props,
they check their lives, and then they need people to back them up
and get everything right. And he would get a little bit
chippy sometimes if someone was a bit incompetent.
But generally speaking, he was an extraordinarily nice man to
work with. Yes, yeah, David said.
Because I contacted him about something else recently and I
mentioned that I was going to be talking to you.
It's probably a couple of a while back anyway.
And he said ask him if he can remember the cupboard full of
vests. Yes.
I have no idea what that means. Well, the the previous producer
of the of the Milligan series who I won't name because he was
also a nice man, Spike described.
Do you know do you know whatever his name was he what he is, is
he's a cupboard full of vests. That's what he is.
That was his description of of the previous right.
I I won't say his name, but you know, because it's not.
But you could look it out, yes. Good evening.
Here is the news. Unemployment reaches new heights
today. Two unemployed men in a
helicopter reached a height of 6000 feet in the High Court
today. A judge fell off.
Misses. Time misses.
Stop that. Stop that.
What do you think you're doing?
The ortitude. Has gone wrong, Julian.
Gosh, we'll have to go to emergency news that Spike is
returning to the BBCTV has. The desired reaction from
supremo Alastair Milne? He is to commit suicide In lieu
of a golden handshake. He is to get a silver kick up
the ass. The thing that I was musing
about the other day about the goons was, you know, we're
always told history relates that after the Second World War.
There was a feeling of, you know, we're all in it together
and we'll all either cooperate and and across the classes and
things and it'll all be wonderful and we'll found the
National Health Service and so on and so forth.
But the Goon Show actually tells you a very different thing,
doesn't it? It tells you that the office of
classes are not to be trusted yet, which is an entirely
different sort of angle. So maybe that post war consensus
wasn't quite as you know people describe.
I wonder, that's a very good point and that's why so many, so
many in BBC management at the time were so against the goons
because they were, you know, they were officer class
themselves, they'd been, you know, that they took it
personally, you know, the caricature was like blood knock
and the like. Yeah.
And you get a, of course, you get a more detailed and nuanced
version of it in in Spike's War Diaries books.
Yes. You know, the war was a very
different experience to, you know, watching a warm, you know,
a warm movie they made after the war about the Dam Busters or
something. The real war was an entirely
different thing. You know, it was, and I don't,
actually. And I think this is where, you
know, I think Spike was. A very interesting man because
he, he was a leader in so many ways, you know, over the
environment and over all kinds of things.
And, you know, just writing the truth about how how it is to be
in a war, You know, as a, as a, as a, as a person.
It was really interesting that, you know, OK, it was cloaked in
comedy. But what it was telling you was
was kind of disturbing, wasn't it?
It's, you know, there was a, a a window into the the actual
realities of the war that I think very few even serious
books had had had done up to that point.
Yeah, and funny enough, David told me that when he and you had
been that Spike's or been out for a meal one occasion when you
were in Spike's company. He told he told you that he'd
only just found out from one of his army friends.
That he hadn't appreciated his the the depiction of him in the
books. I can't.
I can't remember what the name of the guy was.
I'm assuming it was Harry Edgington.
Harry. Edgington.
That's it, right? Gunnar Edgington says.
I'd heard from Gunnar Edgington. He hated what he hated, what he
did in the books. And I said yes, but what about
the other people? And and we're kind of expecting
a hilarious end of this story. And he said, oh, they hated it
too. They all hate you, but they left
it years to tell them that. Yeah, that's just funnier.
I don't, I don't know why it's funny because it was Spike
saying there's some looking terribly crystal.
I don't know whether Spike thought you know whether they
would find it a kind of. Interesting tribute to whether
it would irritate. Well, The thing is on the show
recently we we covered the first, the first memoir, which
is that of Hitler, My Partner's Downfall, which which required
rereading it of course. And Harry Edgington comes out of
it very well. You know, he's trading jokes
with Spike. You know he in fact in some
cases he's he's out doing Spike on the humor front, if it's
Spike writing it of course. And it's a lot of it is
obviously. Well, how much of what Spy
writes in that memoir or any of the memoirs is is actual
remembered dialogue? You know, it's very.
Little of it, I should say. Little, but still, you know
what? You recall and what you remember
are different things, aren't they?
Yeah, yeah. But no.
He comes out of it very well, I felt.
But I I haven't reread the others for many years, so
perhaps perhaps he he writes him less sympathetically as as the
books go on. Possibly.
I mean, I I don't know really. I I just think it's a very funny
anecdote. What Spike said that then I
suppose we were probably rather cruel to laugh at him, but it
was kind of, it just was very funny.
The fact that it looked, it looked like, you know, it's one
of those stories, it looked like it was going to end with but
everyone else hilarious, but it didn't end like this at all.
But I don't. I don't know really.
So we've dealt with Spike quite a lot and we have Harry, I only
peripherally knew and and Sellers I didn't know at all but
of course you know he's got a fantastic body of work to to
look back on. I'm doing, I'm doing a best of
listeners, top 20 Sellers films for the end of the year.
By the way, do you have a particular favorite?
Well, you know, it's. I'm never sure about these lists
because I don't. I mean, how can you compare
Chancellor Gardner with, I don't know, Inspector Cluzer?
They're just entirely different levels of, you know, Yeah, yeah,
yeah, Ization, aren't they? I mean, even in even in Doctor
Strangelove, you can't compare Strangelove with with President
Monthly, can you? Again, they're totally different
sort of, angles of. So I don't know a favorite.
You know what do you? It's so hard.
What do what criteria are you using to?
Well, no. My criteria would be of and and
it's. I can easily say my favorite
seller's film is is the one that I would put on comfort viewing.
One that I consistently enjoy from beginning to end, which is
a shot in the dark, which was the 2nd clues, so film.
So, no, I just wondered if you had a particular, if there, if
there was one film above all others, that of his that stood
out to you well. Is, you know, a Clueso movie is
best enjoyed in the cinema. I can, I can remember going to
see the return of the Pink Panther and just being in a
room, you know, a big cinema of people just laughing and
laughing and laughing and all these things.
That's a great experience. On the other hand, Doctor
Strangelove is a very chilling piece of work.
You know, it's it has great significance.
Being there is a fabulous end to a career.
I know it isn't strictly the end because there's Fu Manchu.
Yeah, I mean, even even I have to say even Fu Manchu has fun in
it, you know, it's not a terrible, it's not a completely
terrible movie. It's not his worst film.
No, not by any means. You know, I remember seeing with
my dad the wrong arm of the law and two way stretch and the bill
was that was they're a great pair of movies, you know, very
enjoyable, but not a huge amount of depth in the
characterizations really. You know, there were so many.
I mean even. Even Sellers in Casino Royale is
interesting. You know, it's a kind of
interesting sort of take on James Bond.
I mean he's he's you know he's he's so difficult to pin down in
any one thing isn't it Yeah well we we he's very he's.
Very good. In Tom Thumb for example, you
know the fatter sellers. Together with Terry Thomas, have
you seen the optimists of Nine Elms?
Yes. Yes, I saw it when it came out.
It's. I believe they didn't.
They want Buster Keaton to do that.
Yeah, they did. Wouldn't that have?
Been fantastic if he had. That's just such a regret to me.
I don't think he was too ill by that.
No, I think because we covered this, that film last week, by
the way, because it was his 50th anniversary, right.
It's great film but I think they wanted in the end because it was
originally it was in development hell that film if they called it
that back in the day. But you know it took about best
part of 10 years to get it on screen and originally they had
busted Keaton in mind and then the studios or whoever the money
men were, they wouldn't they. They didn't think he was
bankable and there was a few other people considered and and
in the end Sellers took it up and Sellers does it very well
And and I I said on the show that we did on it last week that
I think the optimist of nine amps would have been a better
you know instead of Foo Manchu, a better final film because it
would have coming after being there.
I think it would have kept his career quite nicely.
He he was apparently doing a rendition of his father, wasn't
he? Yes, he was.
Yeah. Very interesting.
I wonder what it would have been like if he'd played Fagan and
Oliver. I wonder if he would have been
better than than Ron Moody or not.
It's a good Yeah, there is. What if something like that?
Well, there's so many films that he turned down that he probably
shouldn't have, and films that he took on that he shouldn't
have, you know, I think. That's inevitable.
When you're an actor, there's always, you know, the ones you
wished you, the ones you wished you hadn't done.
I mean, Marco Cain had a very good, has a very good attitude,
doesn't it? In order to make, you know, four
good movies, you've got to make 20 movies.
That's that's why I always make lots of movies.
And that's that's a house for my mum that Jaws, Jaws, The Revenge
or whatever it was that bought my mum a new house.
Yeah, no. But I think Salah's biggest
regret in terms of the film that he regrets turning down was the
producers. I don't know whether he.
I don't know he's so hard when someone well I I didn't think
anyone else could play Max B Alice stock but but Nathan Lane
plays him perfectly well so I don't know who knows Nathan Lane
have you seen the birdcage? Yes, isn't that.
I don't know what you think of The Bird Cage as a film, but
Nathan Lane in that is one of my favorite performances ever in a
film. That's all I am to.
You. Isn't it a meal ticket?
Never mind about my feelings. Never mind about my suffering.
It's just about your show. Not even our show.
Your show. I want a palimony agreement, and
I want one now. Well, I don't have a palimony
agreement on me right now. Is tomorrow right?
Don't use that tone to me. A tone.
That sarcastic, contemptuous tone that means you know
everything because you're a man and I know nothing because I'm a
woman. You're not a woman.
Oh you bastard. I do.
Everybody take it easy. Whatever I am, he made me.
I was adorable once young and full of hope.
And now look at me. I'm a short, fat, insecure,
middle-aged thing. I made you short.
Am I right in thinking it's an Elaine May, Mike Nichols?
Yeah, probably. The last collaboration, isn't
it? Probably it would have been,
yeah. Yeah.
I mean. Well, you've got, you know,
you've got masters in charge there, haven't you?
So what? What can you say?
Yeah, yeah, No, it's a it's a it's a very good piece of work.
Much. You know, I think the musical
had happened by then, hadn't it? So it was kind of a surprise.
I suppose whoever, whoever the the movie was, it United Houses.
I don't know, probably controlled the rights to the
original French movies but not the musical.
Oh, the musical's doing well. Let's bring out the non musical
English. Yeah, Yeah.
No, I have to say Nathan Lane. I went to see him in the
Producers in the West End. I don't know if you you saw
that. No, but you, there are certain
people when you see them, but. Just radiate a kind of comedy
nuclear energy that you cannot discuss a sort of comedy
charisma. I, I, I, Nathan Lane just has
it, whatever it is. When you're in that theater, my
God, you're aware. I tell you what it reminds me
of. I was.
I was once on holiday in Boston. And we went out to see if we
could, in a boat, you know, on an organized trip to see if we
could find a whale, a whale watching.
And we, we sailed off for about an hour.
And then suddenly you had this terrible feeling that something
huge was nearby. You couldn't see it.
There was, you know, no water flumes or anything.
But you you there was a presence, there was a.
Presence of this huge object. And not long after that, we saw
The whale. And that's the kind of feeling
that I got when I saw Nathan Lane in the producer Wow of this
huge object. And you know, it's a, it's a,
it's a it's a it's a rare quality.
It only happens with a few people.
Well, I'm enjoying him right now, actually.
What I'm watching and working my way through the second series of
only murders in the building with Steve Martin and Martin
Short and and Nathan Lane's got a relatively small role in that
but he's just lights up the screen as they say he is quite
a. Talent.
I mean, I wish I'd seen him when a funny thing happened on the
way to the forum, which I would really have liked to.
Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna talk a little bit
about Alexis Sales stuff and I remember being very.
Struck by many things, but particularly Angus Dayton.
I just thought he's so much like John Cleese.
Yes it was. And I've never seen or heard of
Angus Stayton up to that point. To this day I cannot hear the
name Leslie Crowther without thinking of him in a in a very
ill fitting tight suit with a with a bald wig on playing
Alexis Sale. So what happened was we'd met
Alexi making was Apocalypse and when we were making the movie in
Miami I think we've been sort of sitting around together waiting
for filming and and and found we all got on really well.
And indeed even to this day Alexi is one of my my best
friends ever. I think, you know, he's he's,
he's a lovely man. Not at all like the shouty sort
of Alexi. You see on screen a very
thoughtful actually I think the, you know, the recent imaginary
sandwich shop episodes are actually much more interesting
in the ways he's a little bit more reposed in those, isn't he?
Which I think is quite interesting.
And we were we, I think we had lunch with Jim Moyer who was the
BB CS head of Variety at that. At that moment the BBC comedy
was divided into two sections, Situation Comedy and variety.
And Jim said is there anybody you'd like to make a show with?
And we said Alexi Sale and because it was variety rather
than comedy, situation comedy, it had to have a song in it that
was the only that was the only requisite we had.
So that's why there were songs and that's why I imagine that's
why there are songs in The Young Ones as well.
I think that was probably made. Yeah, because it was.
It was then part of the light entertainment budget rather than
the comedy budget, I think. Yeah, but we, you know we had
enormous form of those songs anyway, so that's how that came
about. And we would go to Alexis House
I think once a week and and and Linda would make us a lovely
meal and we'd just sit there and laugh and laugh and read things
out to each other and we had a fantastic.
I think it's probably the best time I've ever had on the show
making making stuff. We really, we really enjoyed
that, like I. Say you had Angus decent.
You had fledgling comedians or comic actors like Mark Williams
and Arabella Weir, Yeah. It turns up Phil Ravens,
Felicity Montague and Jen Ravens.
Yeah. Who are both brilliant in their
own way. I think there's there's.
The absolutely wonderful sketch. The teenage girls who have
obsessed with Lord Hailsham. Yes, Lord Hailsham.
Always comes up with this podcast.
Yeah I mean it's hard to pick a a favorite Alexis sales sketch.
I was take. I think around that time Mark
and I were taking self defence classes and I think self-defense
of our sarcasm would probably come into it.
That's that's one of my favourite.
Sketches the Guide Dogs for the dead, Guide Dogs for the Stitch.
Yes, that's very funny. Just visually very funny as
well. Yeah, it's made of this comedy
writing game. In it you see the trouble is
that according to the experts, there's only 7 jokes in the
world. That's one of them.
Six at About Jelly. It's very.
Funny. It's the most hilarious thing
I've ever read in my life. It's.
Unbelievably funny. What were your?
I mean, how do I put this? Who did what in terms of your
personal individual style and individual comedy text?
What? What did each of you bring to a
project, if you like? Well, Alan Boyd once said of us,
and I thought this is quite accurate, that I was
mischievous, whereas David was merciless.
And I think that's that's really quite interesting.
And I think when you put them together, you get quite an
incendiary sort of what we would do is in those days we would
have very, very detailed discussions about ideas, share
them out between us, go off and write a draft and then sort of
swap them over. And David would pretty
ruthlessly edit everything and put it all together and assemble
it, which he was very good at. This is, you know, I I learned
to do that later when I was doing things by myself.
So when I came to write with with Rob Grant later on, it was
quite who wanted to write, you know, live together.
Although we do it on Zoom, it was quite, it was quite a new
experience for me. So that was really quite good
because I'd never done that before.
So I've done it both. I've done it both ways and
they're they're both equally good.
What I mean David used to say that I was ideas and he was
organization and I think that's probably how it worked in our
earlier days. But of course, as time wore on,
he got better at ideas and I got better at organization and we
sort of became kind of equal, I think by the time we got to
Alexi Sale and we know what I. Meant to ask you as well.
Sorry. Going backwards and forwards
here. Apologies.
Douglas Adams, yes. And I know that you are
supposedly the inspiration for Marvin the Paranoid Android, and
originally it was gonna be called Marshall.
Is that right? Yes, I believe so.
So can you tell? Because I don't really know
about your relationship with him.
We were just friends. We met up at probably around
just before Berkus Way, hanging around you know the BBC Radio
places. I found him a fascinating guy.
I remember Douglas and I once stayed up an entire night just
talking to each other. We've we you know he was a he
was a fascinating and interesting man.
I people often ask me about this and I'm really can't help you
with it because I don't know. You know, it only means
something to Douglas. It doesn't mean anything to me
at all. I don't know.
But you know, perhaps he met me in a morose mood one day and I
don't think I'm generally that morose.
I my sort of recollection of Douglas was he was the one who
was tended to be morose and I was usually trying to cheer him
up. But that just is my
recollection. I I I don't know what I make of
it. I do remember being in the
Captain's cabin, which you probably know is a pub or was.
I don't know if it's still there around the corner from the Paris
studios where we used to record everything.
And I remember him showing me the script of the first episode
of of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
I remember I I actually said this.
I'm not making this up or changing history.
I said I think you should prepare to be famous.
That was. That was not what I said after
I'd read it. But looking back on it, I I
suspect he might have been showing me the script to see if
I recognize myself in the sky, which of course I didn't.
And then he went around saying it was all based.
I could probably actually sue the Douglas Adams estate for
enormous amounts of money if I wanted to, if I wait for an
American. But I guess it's a kind of
compliment, isn't it? I don't, I don't really know, to
be sort of immortalized. Absolutely.
I mean, I think it's a funny
character. It's basically eel though, isn't
it? Really, it's just eel.
Maybe it's just your way of speaking because you've got a
very measured way of speaking. Maybe it's just that I don't
know. Who knows?
Afraid. The guy who can tell us can't,
can no longer tell us. No.
It's indeed no. OK.
And So what was the reason that you and David?
Decided to go your separate ways then we never did decide that
really. We we were just, you know, we
always did some separate things. And I for some somehow or other
I I was. I was trying to develop this
thing at Central Television because and I'll tell you why I
did it as well. One day when we were a writing
pair, David had a terrible accident on the M1 which was and
he wasn't badly hurt as it happens.
But it made me think, Oh my God, I wonder if I could conceivably
survive if David wasn't there anymore.
So I was, you know, I thought I'd better just see whether it's
possible for me to do it. And so I developed this not
really very good sitcom which Barry took, had very kindly sort
of encouraged me to do at Central called Sobsys.
Don't go and look it up. It's just dreadful.
And I was learning at the time and I I kind of proved to myself
I could do it. And then while I was doing that,
I think David developed 1 Foot in the Grave and this series I,
I, I wrote didn't go down particularly well because it's
just, you know, it was my very first try at something by
myself. So you know, it was a very much
a nursery slope. Yeah.
And then David was busy doing that at the BBC.
So I thought, well I better try and do something else by myself.
And so I developed 2.4 children and that and then they both
those series just ran around and ran and and that was it.
There was never any decision or falling out or anything of that
kind. It just didn't, you know, that's
just how it worked out, yeah. 2.4 children And correct me if
I'm wrong, but I get the feeling from what I've read, from what
I've learned, that it was treated pretty shabbily by the
BBCI mean. It depends what you mean by
treating shabbily. Every year they'd ask for
another series and they never told us what to do, you know, we
were just allowed to go on and put whatever we wanted into it.
So I think in, you know, in that respect they treated us quite
well, wasn't. There like, wasn't there like a
party or something? I'm sure I read.
So heard somewhere that there was a yeah, I think there was.
I think towards the end of the run there was a Britain's best
sitcom party or something and Gary got terribly upset because
because none of us were invited but I I sort of got used to them
that. But but you know it's one of
those things that only the only only the public lost and you
know it it it's true we never won awards or anything because I
don't think anyone who made the awards or or or who was a proper
critic ever really watched it. They just saw the name, saw you
know a trailer and thought oh, I know what that is.
It's like Terry and June or something and just paid no
attention to it. And while they were paying no
attention to it, we had the most enormous fun doing all sorts of
subversive things with it. No one really noticed in the in
the establishment. So it was, it was, you know, a
great sort of thing to do, really.
All right. I admit it.
Admit what? I've been using the phone line
at night. Rippers.
My net handle. Oh yeah, what?
It's my e-mail. Name.
What's he talking about? Electronic mail.
I've connected my computer to the Internet.
You've connected your computer to the Internet.
Our son has connected his computer to the Internet.
Internet. We know business doing that.
You don't know what it. Is.
I don't care what it is. You're not to connect to any
Nets. Even if they have got an handle,
it's too expensive. Yes, Dad.
What is it? It's a.
Communications network linking together millions of computers
through the phone lines, isn't it?
Well, where are? These computers everywhere in
the entire world. You can link up to universities
discussion groups. US Naval research.
US Naval, NATO. NATO.
The White House. The White House.
Oh, my God. It's all right.
It's quite legal, and you can get on cheap rate after 7:00.
We should be thankful. Hasn't gotten through to the
FBI. I have.
They sent me for some message, too.
The FBI have got our address. I know they haven't.
They just know that we're on the end of the phone line.
Go and unplug it. Now.
That doesn't. Quickly.
Yes, ma'am. How many more of these have you
got? Oh, only. 100 so far.
Christmas cards from nerds we don't even know.
Oh, Ben, you don't think they'll be able to trace us here, do
you? Trace a phone line?
The FBI? No Who's.
That I I gather. You a big you must be a big
movie buff, because there'd be very, in some cases, subtle or
not subtle. Sort of almost like movie
parodies or parodying movie and television cliches or tropes and
things like when you're when you're writing something for 10
years, you have to. I mean I think there's a there's
a famous anecdote isn't it. Steve Martin was I think making
LA story was practicing his roller skating and past Johnny
Carson somewhere other and Carson said you'll do you'll use
everything you ever knew and. When you're when you're riding a
sitcom, you know, 67, You'll use everything you ever do.
Yeah, it's quite demand. It doesn't sound, you know, 8
episodes a year doesn't sound awfully demanding, but it's a
hell of a lot of work. I can tell you for one person
and you you know any any different way you can get into a
different kind of story or a different angle you can put on
something you know is is is something you need to use.
And how controlling were you? Because again, I know on the one
from the grave, David was always there and he was always quite
adamant about this. That and the other were you
always present or did you kind of let them get on with it?
I was, I was. I was always present for
exterior filming and on 1st rehearsal that I'd probably
leave them to learn the lines for a couple of days and I go
back in midweek see how it was going on sometimes.
Sometimes lines weren't going well, and there's There's
usually only two reasons for that.
Either the line is wrong, in which case you take it out, or
the actor doesn't understand the line, and so you've got to work
out which of those two it is. That sounds easy, but sometimes
that can be very difficult. Is the line wrong or do they
just not understand? Or is it not clear?
Or how do you make it clear? Or something isn't working?
Or, you know, so I'd be around to help and to to keep an eye
on, you know, I mean, you know, they the accident deviate from
the scripts. You know, they wouldn't put in
extra lines or anything like that.
They were, you know, they were actors.
That's what they did. They come in, they learn the
script and they do it. That's not quite the same as me
bearing down on them and saying you've got to say it exactly
this way. Gary was particularly good at
finding unusual ways of saying lines or a different sort of
having a slightly old take on things, which was always very
interesting. Gary was a marvelous actor,
obviously taken far too young. Yes, and I know he was.
He headed up the cast on health and efficiency as well.
Now I haven't, I must admit, hold my hand up.
I had. I've never seen health and
efficiency. Yeah, you can find it quite
easily on on YouTube, I think. I didn't know it was enormous
fun. It was kind of my version of
Cheers crossed with the hospital drama and it worked very well.
The problem we had with Elton efficiency, which is something
another lesson learned, was that our designer, David Buckingham,
built this enormously elaborate studio hospital set with
corridors and rooms and all sorts of things.
It's very labyrinth time. Yeah.
And it was so complicated that we'd come in because you you, I
don't know what you know about TV recordings, but you've just
got the one day in the studio to do it.
Yeah. So we'd come in in the morning
and the set wouldn't be finished.
In the in the older days of the BBC, they had, they had what was
called a night crew and they put up things during the night.
But that had stopped quite recently when we made health
divisions. So they would start putting it
up, you know, relatively early in the day whenever the scene
builders came on. And it was never quite finished
in time for rehearsal. So we quite often had to record
the show without having rehearsed it on the set.
Obviously we rehearsed it in the rehearsal room in the church or
whatever it was, but we hadn't rehearsed it on the set, which
is a very different prospect. So it's really nail biting that
we would even get the show recorded, you know, in the day.
And so it was quite, it was quite a difficult show to make
in that respect, but there's a lot about it that's very good.
My partner thinks it's the best of my shows.
I I prefer Dad myself. But it's well worth seeing.
We haven't seen. There's some very funny
episodes. Very, very funny.
I will see. Do you?
Know I know why I won't have watched it at the time and it's
nothing to do with you. How do I put this?
There's there's three performers, if you like, or
actors or or artists who I have a real problem with.
One is Robert Morley. I can't watch Robert Morley.
One is Lulu. OK?
And one is Roger Lloyd Pack. Right.
And I gather Roger. And that's why I have trouble
watching Only Fools and Horses as well.
But he was in health and efficiency, wasn't he?
Yes, he played the sort of the equivalent of, oh, the sort of
villain. There's two villains in health
and efficiency. Roger Lloyd Pax villain who is
the villain with with no redeeming qualities and and his
his sort of girlfriend who's a kind of Thatcher like figure and
she's she's a villain with redeeming qualities But yeah he
plays a kind of Danny DeVito sort of very rude surgeon but
yeah we all have people we don't like watching for some reason or
other it's I don't know it's some chemical personality.
I'm just weird. Yeah, you know, there's one of,
there's one of David's series that I can't watch because I
don't like the principal actor and I won't name them again.
But you know, I just we all have these sort of blind spots about
people. Did he bite a tramp's ear by any
chance? I don't know what that means.
So, OK, yeah, No. Gary Olson there.
I'd like 2.4 children. He's marvellous and you just
think he could have gone on to so much.
He could have been a much bigger star.
Yes, it was an enormous surprise.
And it was a terrible business because we knew Gary told
Belinda and I and the BBC as he had pancreatic cancer.
And, you know, you and very sadly, you look it up and the
recovery rate is minuscule. It's like nought point nought,
nought nought 1% of people or something.
So we knew it was a very bad diagnosis.
And and Gary didn't want us to tell anyone else because he was
worried that if he came back to acting, he'd never get
insurance. So he wouldn't, you know, be
able to, you know, if he did recover.
Yeah. And so we had to sort of spend a
year with people saying, oh, you know, people would say, when's
the series coming back? We say, oh, well, we're not
sure. And, you know, and it was quite
difficult because we, we weren't allowed to actually say
anything. So it was.
And in fact, I don't think Claire and John, who played the
children, knew at the time. I think all the first they knew
was was when his death was announced, which was very, oh
God, traumatic for the for them. I didn't realise they didn't
know. I assumed the BBC would have
told them, but apparently not. And in fact they'd Geoffrey
Perkins, who was head of comedy at the time, did say to me, do
you think you could write Gary's illness into the into the show
somehow? And I thought about this.
No, I I don't think I can. I don't think that's going to
work, really. And so that's when they said,
OK, we'll start my family up, all right, I.
See. OK, what did you find working or
writing for children? And I know that by the end they
were teenagers, but writing for kids notoriously can be tricky.
Did you find that? Not really, no.
I thought they were, but I every year I would look at John and
Claire and think how old do they look?
And then that's the age they were that year.
So you'll find that. That there's something like five
years between them at the beginning of the series and I
think there's like one year between the end of the final
series and they they've aged about five years in 10 years or
something. But of course you have to
remember the the series weren't necessarily a year apart in
series time. You know, they it was a sort of
like a continuous run really of of time in a way.
So yeah, yeah, yeah, it's the same.
Thing Agatha Christie did with Poirot, I think.
I think she worked out that Poirot would have been like 130
or something with the time he got to the last book.
He only, I think he's, I think she had a really only age 2/3 of
what everybody else aged or some such thing.
But, you know, no one really notices as long as as long as it
doesn't look ridiculous. You know, I think Homer Simpson
in 89, when they began was 38. Yeah, I think he's now after
what, 30? What?
What are we now 89?
So what was that 34 years later? I think he's now 42.
Yeah. Well, that'll be.
Yeah, but. All those things could have
happened daily, couldn't they? They don't have to be weekly,
you know, or even you know they could.
The next adventure could start immediately in time after the
previous. It's all, it's all you know,
it's all just pretend. I hate, I hate to, you know, to
break this to people, but. It's it's just, it's just it's
just a movie. As as Hitchcock used to say,
shouldn't shouldn't be overanalyzed, which is you don't
have. To take it that seriously, Yeah,
I know you mentioned Poirot. You did some adaptations, didn't
you? Of Poirot?
Yes, both. David and I did did two or three
episodes of Poirot. I love doing that.
I'm a great Agatha Christie. I am too.
I love, I think, the best.
The best Poirot is, I think it's generally considered to be the
murder of Roger Ackroyd. Which, yeah, must be the devil's
own job to adapt that, yes. Because then, I'm not going to
spoil it, but the nature of it, You know what?
Yes. Yes, yes, and in fact Brian,
Brian East was, the producer said He had terrible trouble and
now I've got to be very careful what I say about these things in
order to avoid the spoilers, but.
In one of the episodes I wrote, we had Poirot narrating it and
and I remember Brian said to me, why is pouring, how do we accept
Poirot's narrating this? I said, I said because it's his
show, I mean, no one's going to think that strange at all.
And when they came to meet Roger Ackroyd, he remembered this
narration device. And so it's Poirot who is
reading a diary which. Has a great significance on what
later happens, But I won't say anymore.
OK And I know you've worked, you have collaborated a little bit
with the great job Lloyd. Yes.
What are the things on Radio 4? Yes, we did that.
Was it during Berkus Or before Berkus?
I can't remember now exactly when it was, but that was fun.
Yes. Am I right in saying John?
So John Lloyd was the Berkus Way producer.
He was the. He was one of our three
producers. Yes, they were Simon Brett, John
Lloyd and later David Hatch. I mean, I I've known John since
he came to the BBC as a as a training producer and you know,
throughout. Throughout his life on and off,
you know periodically we we we catch up and he's an enormously
clever man who who you know really has the spirit of comedy
in him. I wish.
I wish he was doing more things, really, but he still pops up on
Radio 4:00 during the Museum of Curiosity, doesn't he?
Yes, he. Does, yes.
He's never. I mean I think, I think I'm
right in saying we asked John whether he wanted to be one of
the performers on under part one and I think he turned that down.
I mean I think we periodically David and I tried to lure John
into before but he he always probably very wisely turned it
down because probably he he probably he needs to do stuff in
a particular genre that that suits him.
But yeah, OK. There's something I want to ask
you about as well. You've probably never been asked
this in 30 years, but it's something I'm very fond of.
And it it, it was pretty, I think it was fairly unfairly
slated at the time. But the film Wilt.
Oh, yeah. With Griffin.
Mel. Yes.
Which is obviously based on the Tom Sharp novel, which you and
David adapted. Yes, I love that film.
My name is Henry Wilt and I have a confession to make.
Henry. Wilt has a confession to make
concerning his wife. Murder.
Semiological solution something. Grisly will be good.
That's him. That's the man I saw on Friday
night. He was stabbing a woman to
death. That's what we call a positive
identification Mr. Wilt now. He's helping the police with
their inquiries and his slender alibi is about to bounce, which
is not surprising because she's made a rubber.
It's not quite as simple as that.
We were brought in at the last moment by Brian Eastman.
Dick and Ian had originally written the adaptation.
Oh, right. OK.
And it was. Thought to not be quite right
and David and I did quite a a large overhaul on it.
Although there are you know elements of I think Dick and Ian
had had done a fantastic job filleting the story and and you
know let setting it out in the right order and things.
But I don't remember exactly why their draft was not thought to
be. Right, But David and I came on
board and we were literally, you know, it's literally writing
what you scenes and handing them you know under the door, right,
Right. So almost we did a we did a job.
I think we did quite a major overhaul in it.
But I don't want to. I don't want to in any way
minimise the work taken in and done on it because they had done
a lot of spade work in the in the original draft.
Well, those guys, I mean, God, they they're in Hollywood now,
aren't they? Still, I think they're in
Hollywood. Then script doctors on things
like The Rock, yeah. Films like the Rock but Maze,
amazing career those two guys have have had, but absolutely.
The absolute masters of of comedy.
But I I interviewed Griff Rhys Jones a few months ago and I
tried to get him to talk about Wilt, and he didn't want to keep
changing the subject. So was it?
Was it a? Was it an?
I mean, I know you were just sort of involved with the script
writing, but were you on set at all?
Did you see any of it? I think we went.
To filming occasionally. I didn't get the impression it
was that much. I think it did well enough to
make its money back. I've never.
Had the impression it was a real failure of any kind, so I
thought it worked quite well as far as I can remember.
So who knows? I don't really know.
The trouble with Tom Sharp is he is unadaptable.
Really. You can't really, you can't
really put that quality into a movie.
A book is a book and a movie is a movie.
And they they're very different things.
You can try, you know, you can try and do you.
You know certain things, but you know the.
Getting the essence of it into into into movie film is is a
difficult thing. So it's probably, if there were
criticisms of it at the time, it was probably from Tom Sharp.
Literary fans who probably were disappointed, didn't quite have
the qualities that the books have.
But to be honest, you can't do that.
It's just not really possible. You never, you know, Tom Sharp
books live in a world of their own, their own universe.
You can't, really. When you start to bring that
universe into reality, you know which is more a movie.
You can't really, you know, you can't really replicate that.
You can do your best you can. You can make a kind of what was
it? What's the expression Palin set
of it? But you can't actually replicate
it accurately. I've never seen Porterhouse
Blue, but I gather that was quite acclaimed as a as an
adaptation. Yeah, Porterhouse Brian also did
Porterhouse Blue and brought on the landscape.
Yeah, I think that was probably an easier one to do, though.
I think it's probably less, less fantastic.
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean you've. Got Will, you've got, you know,
a man and a blow up doll and yes, the bizarre.
Segment, which is fine. Written down.
You could write it down. There's all sorts of things you
could write down. You know, you could write down.
He suddenly realizes he's in, he's in Cairo or something.
But it doesn't mean to say you can put it on screen, because
how does that happen? Or, you know, you can write down
someone mistakes a horse for Esther Ranson or something, but
you wouldn't do that in real life because they're obviously
very different. Absolutely, totally different.
That's probably a terrible thing to say.
I probably shouldn't. She doesn't listen.
That can I just say, that was not a reference to Esther
Ranson's teeth. I was trying to find two things
in my head that were very dissimilar, and they just were
the things that came to me. Sorry Esther, I didn't mean it
like you think. I'd like to get Esther on the
show though, by the way, because she used to go to Goon Show
recordings back in the 50s. I know I'm an enormous fan of
Esther. I wouldn't say anything against
Esther Ranson, even though I just did.
OK. So look better, better wrap up,
you've been working in recent years with with the like you
mentioned before with Rob Grant. So are you, are you
collaborating on anything at the moment?
Well, we are we're collaborating on on several things.
We we might do a new book, we might do a new TV series, we
might do a new radio series. We we we we sort of came to the
end of our radio series is as as is very often the case when the
controller Radio 4 changed over there.
And you, you tend to find, I don't know, this is kind of the
bane of my life. You just sort of get a nice run
of something and they're a little controlled, so and they
like some of, they're a completely different character.
They like totally different things.
And then you have to stop that and regroup.
So we're in a sort of regrouping situation at the moment.
There's something about the desire to make comedy, the drive
to do it that never really dies. And OK, you know.
You might get to the point where they don't let you make people,
but it never stops you wanting to make it.
You never you, never you never stop wanting to get that laugh
to to to delight those people. It's something that's just born
in you. I don't know what it is.
It's a bit of a curse, it's a bit of a pleasure.
But I I hope to go on making comedy in some form or other as
long as I possibly can. So bad luck everyone.
You probably get answers all the time.
You know what I'm going to ask you?
Would the two of you work again, do you think, David?
And I I don't think so, no, I think we've, I think you know
over the years we've we've sort of slightly diverged in our
paths and I I shouldn't imagine we would fit together very well
there. But that doesn't mean to say
we're not still great friends. You know contact each other from
time to time and and and and and you know I'm I'm you know I will
always be a great admirer of David's work and David's work
ethic which you know is an extraordinary thing.
People often wonder why David is so successful.
The answer is very simple. He works very, very hard.
Yeah. Last question actually just
occurred to me. Did when you kind of went your
separate ways, as it were, you know you had 2.4 children,
health and efficiency here, 1 foot.
Did either of you ever offer the other sort of advice on your on
your solo projects, if you know what I mean?
Did either of you, you know, did he ever pick up the phone to you
and say, well, you know, I think.
You should be doing this. I think it was the opposite
really. I think we declined.
To offer we declined to offer each other any opinions for fear
of of of of upsetting the other person.
You know, I think you've got to. I think they're just kind of
mutual mutual respect there. But I don't.
You know, I don't. It's not for me to say, you know
what? What David should be doing or
vice versa, really. Because he knows perfectly well
what he what his aims are, and and.
He's he's done extraordinary extraordinary well out of it and
and good for him. I mean, he's an ordinary talent.
I I I wouldn't say anything else.
Well, that's Andrew. I want to, you know, thank you
for your time, Stan. Thank you for giving me so many
laughs over the years as well. And I hope that this hasn't been
too much of an ordeal for you. This.
No. No.
Pleasant enough chat, just edit out the libelous bits later if
you wouldn't mind. Yeah, so.
Anything that will get me cancelled, OK, I will do, I will
do probably. Pretty much all of it, Andrew.
Thank. Thank you very much.
Thanks a lot.