Graham Chapman by A Liar's Autobiography Volume VI (v1.0) (html)

Author:A Liar's Autobiography Volume VI (v1.0) (html) [VI, A Liar's Autobiography Volume]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

A Reincarnation

The Coming-Out Party. A Platinum Hydrangea Of Montreaux. The Lost Epistle Of St Paul To The New Zealanders.

In the course of David Frost's 'One-day Holiday' in Ibiza he checked up that John and I had actually been doing some writing and even 'squawked' at it, which we took for laughter (but he pointedly looked forward to reading more than ten pages); said that he thought that it'd be a good idea if John Cleese, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Marty Feldman and myself did a TV comedy show together; and added that he was looking for something for Ronnie Corbett to do, remarking 'Perhaps you, Graham and Barry Cryer would like to have a go at writing it - a kind of middle-class situation comedy - there hasn't really been one.'

That all sounded very good to me. Although I knew him, I'd never written with Barry1 before. 'How would it be if Eric Idle, Barry and myself were to write a pilot programme for the series?'

'Super' said David. 'Super,' and went off to frolic in the shallow waters.

And so what was to become The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimtner, later re-written with Peter Cook; At Last the 1948 Show (very much a progenitor of Python); and several series of Ronnie Corbett's No That's Me Over There would never have happened if it hadn't been for forty-five minutes of David Frost's enthusiasm and confidence prior to paddling.

When I returned from Ibiza I had three months to fill in before taking up an Ear, Nose and Throat 'House-job', and a secure future in medicine seemed to be mapped out for me. Too secure, too mapped out. If I carried on in medicine, I realized I'd have a pretty good idea exactly what I'd be doing ten, twenty and even thirty years from that moment. It struck me like a halibut from the North Sea that that was not the way my life should go at all. What was the point of working on through up to the age of sixty-five and then taking a chance on a better reincarnation next time?

Instead of filling in with an E.N.T. locum I decided to see if I could 'earn' money by writing 'professionally' and so I wrote sketches for Roy Hudd - a programme called the Illustrated Weekly Hudd, and, for a little extra money at Christmas, wrote the linking material for a Petula Clark show. The sketches for Roy came easily enough; it was like writing for The Frost Report. But trying to think up seven different introductions for 'The Other Man's Grass is Always Greener' and ten for 'Downtown' and the odd humorous remark for such people as Sacha Distel, Anthony Newley and Johnny Mathis was really quite a feat. Despite this, I was hooked by it all. It was Showbiz for Dr G. . . .

The pilot script for Ronnie Corbett was approved and the three of us wrote the scripts for seven programmes. Eric, not finding sit-com was his trunk of

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